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The year of the war in Italy. 































THE THREE PANICS. 




THE FIRST PANIC. 

1847—1848. 

As the question involved throughout these pages turns mainly 
upon the comparative strength of the English and French 
navies, the reader’s attention will be frequently solicited 
to the preceding tables of naval expenditure, etc., in the two 
countries. They comprise :— 

1. Accounts, in parallel columns, of the total yearly expen¬ 
diture on the English and French navies, for the twenty-five 
years, from 1835 to 1859. 

2. Accounts of the expenditure, during the same period, for 
wages in the English and French dockyards. 

3. Lists of the numbers of seamen maintained in the two 
navies in each year for the same time. 

There is also a list of the number of vessels in commission 
in each year during the same period in the French navy, 
for which there is no parallel list available in the English 
accounts. 

It should be understood, however, that a comparison of the 
total expenditure in the two countries, for any one year, would 
be a very unfair test of the cost or strength of their respective 
navies. There are several very large items charged in the 
British navy estimates, as, for instance, the half-pay and 
pensions, which are found under other heads in the finance 
accounts of France. On the contrary, there are some smaller 
sums charged to the navy in France, which come under other 
categories of expenditure in England. The chief use of this 
table is to furnish an unbroken comparison of the progress 


n 



2 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[panic I. 


of expenditure in the two countries during a series of years ; 
and with this view, the accounts of the Ministry of the 
Colonies, in which some changes have taken place to break the 
continuity, have been omitted. 

For comparing the naval expenditure of the two countries 
for any one year, especially in what a French writer has called 
the “ aggressive ” outlay, a more accurate test is afforded by 
the second table, giving the amounts expended for wages in 
their respective dockyards. 

But the truest comparison of the strength or cost of the two 
navies, in any given year, is afforded by the numbers of the 
seamen. The official representatives of the Admiralty in the 
House of Commons have always laid down the rule, that the 
vote for men is decisive of the whole amount of expenditure. 
In the words of the highest authority of our day: “It has been 
well ascertained with respect to the naval branch, and still more 
with respect to the other branches of our defensive force, that 
the number of men rules the amount of money voted on all the 
other branches of the various estimates.”* Again, in a Report 
laid before Parliament, on the “ Comparative State of the 
Navies of England and France,”! to which further allusion 
will be made, it is stated: “ But, as in the case of the Army 
Estimates, nearly every vote is affected by the number of men ; 
so, in the Navy Estimates, it will be found that almost every 
vote is influenced by the same consideration ; as an increase in 
the number of seamen involves a corresponding increase in the 
force of ships, in the expense of bringing them forward and 
fitting them for service, and providing for wear and tear.” 

Before proceeding, it may be well to meet an objection. 
It has been said in the House of Commons,! that the public 
accounts are unreliable in France. That the estimates of the 
expenditure for the different ministerial departments are less 
reliable in France than in this country is universally admitted. 
This arises from two causes: the facility with which supple¬ 
mentary credits have been granted by the Executive—a 
privilege which has recently been renounced by the Emperor ; 
and from the circumstance that the Estimates are prepared a 


* Sir James Graham, Hansard , cxxiv. 312. + Par . Pap . 182,—1859. 

X Mr. Bentinck, Hansard , clxi. 1765. 



THE THREE PANICS. 


3 


1847—1848.] 

year in advance of ours. For instance, our Navy Estimates, for 
1862, are prepared in December, 1861; whilst in France the 
same process is going on for 1863. Hence, when the war 
between France and Austria broke out in the spring of 1859, 
as the navy expenditure for that year bad been fixed in 
December, 1857, it followed necessarily that all the extra ex¬ 
penses for that war had to be met by supplementary credits. 

But it must not be inferred that no record is kept of those 
supplementary expenses. Every franc is inserted in the Bulletin 
des Lois, and afterwards appears in the Reglement definitif des 
Budgets. Each item is allocated to the various ministries, and 
the Compte General des Finances comprises absolutely every one 
of these items. Had it not been so, how could M. Fould, 
in his late programme, have exhibited the exact amount of the 
difference between the estimates and the expenditure over a long' 
series of years P Ought not the recent unfavourable expose of 
French finance to satisfy the most sceptical that those in 
power have not the unchecked control of the public accounts ? 

The system of public accounts in France is the most exact in 
principle, and the most rigidly sustained in practice, in the 
whole world; and as the Auditors (La Cour des Comptes ) are 
irremovable judges, an error or a fraud is all but impossible. 
But it requires a delay of more than a year to obtain the 
audited accounts, and hence the above tables are only brought 
down to 1859. 

There is one other point requiring a preliminary observation. 
It might be supposed, from the tone frequently assumed by our 
officials, when speaking in the House on the subject of the Navy 
of France, and from the pretended revelations which some¬ 
times appear in a portion of the public press, that the 
government of that country is in the habit of taking sudden 
and secret resolutions respecting its naval armaments. So far 
is this from being the case, that every body acquainted with 
the subject knows that the French are far more open than our¬ 
selves in discussing and defining, publicly, beforehand, the 
amount and character of their naval force. With us, the 
inquiries of Committees of Parliament, or Boyal Commissions, 
are confined to the details of administration ; they are restrained 
from considering and pronouncing an opinion on the amount of 
force to be kept up, on the plea that that is the prerogative of 


4 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[panic I. 

the Sovereign, to be exercised on the responsibility of the 
Cabinet. Not so in France, where Commissions, appointed by 
the Chambers or the Crown, discuss the future strength and 
organisation of the Navy for many years to come ; and the 
result of their deliberations, with their recommendations, is 
published to the world. 

It must not, however, be supposed that these plans are 
always carried to completion, for no country, perhaps, produces 
a greater number of abortive paper projects than France; but 
the government more frequently fall short of than exceed the 
recommendations of the Committees. For instance, at the 
present moment, the French government is regulating its 
expenditure, under the chief heads of its Naval Budget, by an 
Imperial decree of 1857, issued in consequence of the report of 
a Special Commission, appointed in 1855, and which fixed the 
outlay for fourteen years; but it is certain that new dis¬ 
coveries in naval architecture, if not the state of the finances, 
will lead to a modification of this programme. 

There is something very puerile in the recent attempts to 
frighten the country with stories about secret preparations in 
the French dockyards. It would be just as possible to build a 
great hotel in secrecy in Paris, as to conceal the process of 
constructing a ship of war at Toulon or Cherbourg. Such 
tactics on the part of the alarmists are novel, and not com¬ 
plimentary to the intelligence of the public. The subject was 
treated with greater candour formerly. In introducing the 
Navy Estimates, in 1839, Mr. Wood (now Sir Charles Wood), 
the Secretary of the Admiralty, said:—“The French annual 
estimates contain the fullest information. The French carry 
publicity to a fault. They carry it, as Sir John Barrow has 
mentioned in his late life of Lord Anson, to their own detri¬ 
ment. There is no disguise about the state of their navv.” 

In comparing the expenditure of the two countries, it will be 
observed that they almost invariably rise and fall together. In 
the long run, this must be the case, because it has always 
been the recognised policy of the governments to preserve a 
certain relation to each other. Looking back for nearly a 
century, we shall find that in a time of peace France has been 
accustomed to maintain a naval force, not greatly varying from 
the proportion of two-thirds of our own. If, however, we turn 


THE THREE PANICS. 


1840—1841.] 

✓ 


5 


to tlie tables, in tbe first page, we shall find that in 1840-41, 
this proportion underwent a great and sudden derangement, 
and that, instead of being content with two-thirds of our force, 
the French navy approached almost to an equality with our 
own. Though remotely antecedent, this incident is not wholly 
unconnected with the first panic. 

It was under these circumstances, that Sir Robert Peel’s 
government was formed in 1841. The earliest utterances of 
that statesman, in the House of Commons, when at the head of 
a large conservative majority, indicated the line of policy 
which he was desirous of pursuing. “ Is not the time come,” 
said he, “ when the powerful countries of Europe should reduce 
those military armaments which they have so sedulously raised P 
Is not the time come, when they should be prepared to declare 
that there is no use in such overgrown establishments ? What 
is the advantage of one power greatly increasing its army and 
navy P Does it not see that other powers will follow its 
example ? The consequence of this must be, that no increase 
of relative strength will accrue to any one power; but there 
must be a universal consumption of the resources of every 
country in military preparations. They are, in fact, depriving 
peace of half its advantages, and anticipating the energies of 
war whenever they may be required.” And he thus proceeded 
to indicate a practical policy to the civilized world. “ The 
true interest of Europe is to come to some one common accord, 
so as to enable every country to reduce those military arma¬ 
ments which belong to a state of war rather than of peace. I 
do wish that the councils of every country (or that the public 
voice and mind, if the councils did not) would willingly pro¬ 
pagate such a doctrine.” 

The more than official earnestness of these remarks leaves no 
room to doubt that the speaker yearned for the opportunity of 
carrying into effect his peaceful and cosmopolitan policy. But 
the relations of England and France were, at that moment, 
peculiarly unfavourable to his views. During the previous 
year, whilst his political opponents were still in power, and 
when M. Thiers was at the head of the French government, the 
great diplomatic rupture had occurred between the two govern- 


* Hansard , vol. lix. pp. 403-4. 






6 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC I. 


ments on the Eastern question — the effects of which have 
descended in increased armaments to the present time. Two 
rival statesmen, who wielded with consummate skill the 
combative pride, and the soaring vanity of these great nations, 
had encountered each other on the shores of Syria, where France 
was especially sensitive to defeat and loss of influence. The 
consequence was a deep popular irritation and sense of humilia¬ 
tion throughout the French nation. 

It was under these circumstances, that these two statesmen, 
passing from office into opposition, became, from 1841, the 
persistent advocates, in their respective countries, of a policy 
that led to a constant increase of armaments. The genius of 
both belonged less to the present than to the past. The one 
revelled in the historical glories of the first Empire, exulted in 
being the author of the fortifications of Paris, talked of 800,000 
soldiers for a peace establishment, and forced upon successive 
governments an increase of the navy. The other inherited the 
traditions of Pitt, saw in our great neighbour only the ag¬ 
gressive and warlike foe of our fathers, and urged on the vexed 
and unwilling ear of Sir Robert Peel the construction of 
fortifications, the augmentation of the navy, and the formation 
of the Militia.* The following extract from a speech, delivered 
July 30, 1845, might almost betaken for the utterance of 1860 : 
—“ Now, Sir, France, as I had occasion to state on a former 
occasion, has now a standing army of 340,000 men, fully 
equipped, including a large force of cavalry and artillery, and, 
in addition to that, 1,000,000 of the National Guard. I know 
that the National Guard of Paris consists of 100,000 men, 
trained, disciplined, reviewed, clothed, equipped, and accus¬ 
tomed to duty, and perfectly competent, therefore, to take the 
internal duty of the country, and to set free the whole of the 
regular force. Now, Sir, if France were a country separated 
fr am our own by an impassable barrier ; if she had no navy ; 
or if the Channel could not be crossed, I should say that 
this was a matter with which we had no concern. But that is 
not the case. In the first place, France has a fleet equal to 
ours. I do not speak of the number of vessels actually in 
existence, but of the fleet in commission and half-commission, in 


* Vide, post, p. 20. 




THE THREE PANICS. 


7 


1846 .] 

both which respects the fleet of France is equal to that of this 
country. But, again, the Channel is no longer a barrier. 
Steam-navigation has rendered that which was before ini- 
passaole by a military force nothing more than a river passable 
by a steam bridge.”* 

These accents of mistrust and defiance were echoed from the 
Tubune of the Chamber of Deputies the following year, when 
M. Guizot was compelled by his active and brilliant opponent 
to enlarge his project for increasing the navy :—“ We pay 
England,” said M. Thiers, “the compliment of thinking only 
of her when determining our naval force; we never heed the 
ships which sally forth from Trieste orYenice; we care only 
for those which leave Portsmouth or Plymouth.” f 

Although we have been in the habit of assuming, for the last 
ten years, that our naval ascendancy has been endangered by the 
policy of the successor of Louis Philippe, it was during the last 
eight years of that king’s reign, and especially for a year or 
two subsequent to the Syrian dispute, that a serious effort 
seemed really to be made to rival us at sea. The vast projects 
for extending the dockyards of France, especially Toulon, arose 
out of this diplomatic rupture. It seemed as though the 
government of that country sought to console the nation for the 
wounds which had been inflicted on its self-love, by enormous 
and costly preparations for future wars. But since nobody now 
believes that the “ Citizen King,” the “Kapoleonof Peace,” 
ever contemplated a descent on our shores, it would be a waste 
of time to enter into lengthened details respecting the first 
panic, which terminated with his downfall. Some of the in¬ 
cidents which preceded that event have, however, exercised so 
much influence on the two succeeding panics, that they cannot 
be altogether passed over without notice. 

At the time to which we are now more particularly referring 
(1845-6), the first of these great political delusions had acquired 
no hold of the public mind. The principal contribution to the 
first panic, previous to the publication of the Duke of 
Wellington’s letter, was the pamphlet of Prince Joinville. 
It is difficult now, after a calm perusal of this tract, to under- 


* Lord Palmerston, Hansard, Ixxxii. 1223. 
t Chamber of Deputies, 1846. 




8 


THE THREE TAN ICS. 


[panic I. 

stand how it could have been pressed into the service of the 
alarmists. It is filled throughout with complaints of the in¬ 
feriority of the French navy, and offers not a few probably un¬ 
merited compliments to the superior management of England. 
Here are its concluding words:—“I have been obliged, in the 
whole course of this little pamphlet, to make my country un¬ 
dergo an afflicting comparison with a country that is advanced 
so much before it in the knowledge of its interests ; I have been 
obliged to expose the secret of our weakness compared to the 
greatness of British power; but I should think myself happy 
if, by the sincere avowal of those sorrowful truths, I were able 
to dissipate the illusion, in which are so many clever persons, as 
to the real condition of the navy of France, and to decide them 
to ask with me those salutary reforms which alone can give our 
navy a new era of power and glory.’’ 

The feelings of irritation which had been kept alive by por¬ 
tions of the press, in the interests of certain political parties in 
the two countries, from the time of the Syrian difficulty, and 
throughout the dispute on the Tahiti affair, in 1844, now found 
fresh aliment in the rupture of the two governments on the 
question of the Spanish marriages. It was in the midst of the 
alienation and suspicion with which the public mind regarded 
these proceedings of the French Court, that towards the end of 
1847, the Letter of the Duke of Wellington on our National 
Defences made its appearance,—an event which led to an im¬ 
mediate invasion “ panic,” and furnished a never failing 
argument to successive governments for increased warlike 
expenditure. Nor was this the only evil produced by the 
Letter. It unfortunately gave rise to a host of imitators; for 
how could a military man, of whatever rank, be more patrioti¬ 
cally employed than in following the example of the Com- 
mander-in-Chief, and proclaiming to the world the necessity 
for increased armaments ? And, unhappily, this task could 
only be accomplished by rousing the hostile passions of two 
great nations, by appeals to the fears and resentment of the one, 
and accusations of meditated violence and treachery against 
the other. 

The public has never been fully informed of the circum¬ 
stances which led to the publication of this famous Letter. In a 
pamphlet which appeared in France, just previous to the 


1847 .] THE THREE PANICS. 9 

opening of the session of 1848, written by M. Chevalier, who 
ha clalready devoted his accomplished pen to the cause of the 
Anglo-French alliance, the Duke’s letter had been treated 
in the character of an answer to Prince Joinville’s publication. 
This drew from Lord John Bussell an explanation in the 
House, on the authority of the Duke himself, in which he said 
that, “ nothing could have given greater pain,” to the writer, 
“ than the publication of sentiments which he had expressed 
confidentially to a brother officer.”* It was stated by Lord 
Palmerston, at a subsequent date, that the letter was written 
“ in consequence of an able memorandum drawn up by Sir 
John Burgoyne.”f Whoever gave it to the world must have 
assumed that it would possess an authority above criticism ; 
otherwise, it contains passages which would have induced a 
friend to withhold it from publication. The concluding sen¬ 
tence, where, in speaking of himself, he says, “ I am 
bordering upon seventy-seven years of age, passed in honour,” 
affords sufficient proof that it was not intended for the public 
eye. The entire production, indeed, gives painful evidence of 
enfeebled powers. One extract will be sufficient; the italics 
are not in the original : 

“ I am accustomed to the consideration of these questions, 
and have examined and reconnoitred, over and over again, the 
whole coast from the North Foreland, by Dover, Folkestone, 
Beachy Head, Brighton, Arundel to Selsey Bill, near Ports¬ 
mouth ; and I say that, excepting immediately under the fire of 
Dover Castle, there is not a spot on the coast on which infantry 
might not be thrown on shore at any time of tide, with any wind, and 
in any weather, and from which such body of infantry so thrown 
on shore, would not find within a distance of five miles a road 
into the interior of the country, through the cliffs, practicable for 
the march of a body of troops.” 

Now, any person who has been in the habit of visiting 
Eastbourne and Hastings, knows that for half the year no 
prudent mariner brings his vessel within several miles of that 
coast, and that there is a considerable extent of shore where a 
landing is at all times impracticable. It may be safely 


* Hansard, xcvi. 909. 


t Hansard, clx. 18. 





10 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC I. 


affirmed, that if any one but the Duke of Wellington liad stated 
that there was any shore in the world, on which a body of 
troops could be landed “ at any time of the tide, with any wind, 
and in any weather/’ the statement would have been deemed 
undeserving of notice. The assertion, however, passed un¬ 
challenged at the time, and the entire Letter was quoted as an 
unanswerable proof that the country was in danger. To have 
ventured on criticism or doubt would have only invited the 
accusation of want of patriotism. 

Few people now remember the incidents of the invasion panic 
which culminated in the spring of 1848. It was the first occa¬ 
sion on which the attempt had been made to terrify the public 
with the idea of a sudden invasion from France in a time of 
peace, without a declaration of war, and without the hope of 
conquest, or even the glory of honourable warfare. The theory 
degraded our civilised and polite neighbours to the level of 
pirates. And yet so generally was it proclaimed by the London 
journals of the time, that the editor of that staid and philosophi¬ 
cal print, the Spectator, drew on himself a remonstrance from 
his friend, the late Sir William Molesworth, in a letter dated 
January 17, 1848, from which the following is an extract:— 

“You say that ‘ the next attack on England will probably be 
without notice ; that 5000 Frenchmen might inflict disgrace on 
some defenceless post; 500 might insult British blood at Herne 
Bay, or even inflict indelible shame on the empire at Osborne 
House!’ Good God ! Can it be possible that you whom I 
ranked so high among the public instructors of this nation— 
that you consider the French to be ruffians, Pindarees, free¬ 
booters—that you believe it necessary to keep constant watch 
and ward against them, as our Saxon forefathers did against the 
Danes and the Nordmen, lest they should burn our towns, 
plunder our coasts, and put our queen to ransom,” etc., etc. 

It naturally followed, since the greatest military authority 
had proclaimed the country in danger, that it should be the 
fashion for civilians in high places to echo the cry of alarm. 
Even the peerage, that body which views all other agitations 
with so much serenity, partook of the excitement. Lord Elles¬ 
mere published a letter, bearing at its head the motto, “ Awake, 
arise ! or be for ever fallen!” in which he foretold, in case of an 
invasion, that the Guards w r ould march out at one end of the 


1848 .] 


THE THREE PANTOS. 


11 


metropolis as the French entered at the other, and that on the 
Lord Mayor would be imposed the duty of converting the Man¬ 
sion House into a place where billets would be found for the 
foreign army ; upon which Sir Robert Feel dryly remarked, 
that “ he would defy the Lord Mayor afterwards to show his 
face in Cheapside.”* 

It was under these circumstances, that Parliament assembled 
in 1848. The Whig Government, which had succeeded to 
power in 1846, on the disruption of the Conservative party, 
consequent upon the repeal of the Corn Laws, found themselves 
with a deficient revenue, arising from the late famine in Ireland, 
and great depression in nearly all branches of trade and in¬ 
dustry. On the 18th February, Lord John Russell made his 
financial statement for the year. For the better understanding 
of what is to follow, it may he well to give his opening remarks 
on the state of the nation:— 

“ I shall proceed, Sir, at once, by reminding the House that 
the year which has passed over our heads, or I should perhaps 
say, the period of the last eighteen months, has been one which, 
excepting cases of foreign war or domestic insurrection, is with¬ 
out a parallel, I think, in the history of this country. The 
changes and vicissitudes of prices—the difficulties of commerce 
—the panic which more than once prevailed—the extreme dis¬ 
tress of a part of the United Kingdom—the extraordinary 
efforts that were made to relieve that distress—altogether affected 
the state of this country to a degree, that I believe it would not 
be easy to find an example of such distress in our his- 
tory.”f 

After alluding to the great increase that had taken place in 
the French navy, he proposed, in order to meet the necessity 
for increased defensive armaments, and in accordance with the 
advice in the Duke of Wellington’s letter, to re-organise the 
militia, and to slightly modify, without materially increasing, 
the regular forces. To cover the deficiency in the revenue, and 
to meet the increased charges for militia, etc , the minister pro¬ 
posed an addition of 5d. in the pound to the income-tax, thus 
raising it from 7d. to a shilling. The proposition, so far as 
concerned the increase of our armaments, appeared so moderate, 


* Hansard , xcvi. 1074. 


t Hansard , xcvi. 900. 



12 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC I. 


when viewed in connection with the excitement that had 
reigned out of doors with respect to the designs of our neigh¬ 
bours, that it led Sir Robert Peel to remark— 

“ After the panic which prevailed in this country about a 
month since, I am glad to find the tide has ebbed so fast, and 
that the alarm on the subject of invasion has visibly abated. I 
was afraid the Government might have been unduly influenced 
by that alarm; and I am relieved when I learn that it is not 
intended to make any increase in the military or naval force.” 

But the budget met with no favour from any part of the 
House, and it soon became evident that the intended addition 
to the income-tax would prove fatal to the whole scheme. The 
proposed increase of expenditure for militia, etc., was denounced 
by the reformers, who demanded a reduction of the existing 
establishments; whilst it was still more ominous to hear Mr. 
Bankes, the representative of the country gentlemen, declare, 
that “ that was not the moment to talk of valour and triumph, 
but the time for reflecting how they could remedy the evils 
which pressed so heavily on the great mass of the com¬ 
munity.”* 

Whilst the Government measure was still under discussion, a 
portentous event occurred in Prance, which, if it had not in¬ 
volved the gravest consequences to Europe and the world, would 
have imparted a character of burlesque to the closing scene of 
the first invasion panic. On the evening of the 24th of Feb¬ 
ruary, 1848, whilst the House of Commons was in session, a 
murmur of conversation suddenly arose at the door, and spread 
throughout the House, when was witnessed—what never oc¬ 
curred before or since, in the writer’s experience—a suspension 
for a few minutes of all attention to the business of the House, 
whilst every member was engaged in close and earnest conver¬ 
sation with his neighbour.! The intelligence had arrived of 
the abdication and flight of Louis Philippe, and of the procla¬ 
mation of the Republic. The monarch and his ministers, whose 


* Hansard, xcvi. 932. 

t The writer of these pages was sitting by the side of the late Mr. 
Hume when the tidings reached their bench. Sir Robert Peel was on the 
opposite front seat, alone, his powerful party having been broken and 
scattered by his great measure of Corn-Law Repeal. “ I ’ll go and tell 
Sir Robert the news,” exclaimed Mr. Hume, and, stepping across the floor. 



1848 .] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


13 

ambitious projects had furnished the pretexts for our warlike 
armaments, and the gallant prince, whose pamphlet had sounded 
like a tocsin in our ears, were now on their way to claim the 
hospitality of England. 

Under any other circumstances than those in which the 
country now found itself, this astounding intelligence would 
have probably caused an increase rather than a diminution of 
the invasion panic. There was, indeed, a momentary effort, in 
certain quarters, to turn to account the apparition of the dread 
Republic, with all the grim reminiscences associated with its 
motto of “ Liberte, Egalite, et Fraternite But the nation 
was too much harassed with its internal difficulties to listen to 
the suggestion of those who would revive the terrors of an 
invasion. Bad as had been the condition of the country, it was 
now felt that there was a worse state of things impending, from 
the destruction of confidence, the suspension of trade, and the 
interruption to labour, which the revolutions, now spreading 
over the Continent, were sure to produce. Public meetings 
w r ere called; men of influence, of different political parties, 
mingled on the same platform, to denounce the increase of 
taxation, to repudiate the desire for the Militia, or any other 
addition to the defensive armaments of the country, and to call 
for a reduction of the public expenditure. Petitions, in this 
sense, poured into the House. The Government took the 
alarm; and on the 28th February, the Chancellor of the 
Exchequer withdrew the budget for amendment. The Militia 
Bill was heard of no more for four years. A Committee of the 
House of Commons was appointed to examine into the Military 
and Haval expenditure, with a view to greater economy in the 
Estimates. Before the close of the session, considerable reduc¬ 
tions were announced. The Income-tax remained at its 
previous amount of 7d. in the pound for the remainder of the 


he seated himself by his side, and communicated the startling intelli¬ 
gence. On returning to his place, he repeated, in the following words, the 
commentary of the ex-minister:—“This comes of trying to carry on a 
government by means of a mere majority of a Chamber, without regard to 
the opinion out of doors. It is what these people (pointing with his 
thumb over his shoulder to the protectionists behind him) wished me to 
do, but I refused.” 




14 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[panic i. 1848 . 

year; and, on the meeting of Parliament, in 1849, notwith¬ 
standing that a Bonaparte had just previously been elected Pre¬ 
sident of the French Republic, and that the Continent generally 
was in a state of revolutionary disquiet, the Queen’s Speech 
contained the following announcement:— 

“ The present aspect of affairs has enabled me to make large 
reductions on the Estimates of last year.” 

The advocates of a system of direct taxation may profit by 
the admission :—there can be no doubt, that the proposal to add 
5d. in the pound to the Income-tax, mainly contributed to put 
an end to the first invasion panic. 


15 


THE THREE PANICS. 


THE SECOND PANIC. 

1851—1852—1853. 

In ordinary years, when nothing occurs to concentrate public 
attention on this branch of the budget, it will be observed that 
the expenditure on the “ Services ” has a tendency to increase 
in proportion to the prosperity of the country.* Taking the 
amount of our foreign trade as the test of the progress of the 
nation, we shall find, looking hack over the last ten or twelve 
years, that the amount of exports, and the amount of Military 
and Naval Estimates, have been augmented in nearly an equal 
ratio, both having been about doubled. It would seem as if 
there were some unseen power behind the Government, always 
able, unless held in check by an agitation in the country, to 
help itself to a portion of the national savings, limited only by 
the taxable patience of the public. A combination of circum¬ 
stances, however, counteracted this tendency at the period to 
which we are now referring, the most influential of which was 
that “ the landed interest was in a dissatisfied and uneasy state 
from anticipations of the great change in the commercial policy 
of the country, which was to come into full effect at the com¬ 
mencement of the present year ” f (1849). Moreover, the party 


* “ I have observed, that there is always a great deal of pressure for an in¬ 
crease of the army and navy, and a great complaint about the defencelessness 
of the country, whenever there is a surplus income over expenditure. Why, it 
is a tempting thing, a large heap of money at the table of the Exchequer, 
and the knowledge, on the part of the ‘ Services,’ that if John Bull can be 
sufficiently frightened into the cry for increased defences, there is a very 
good chance of some of the money being divided among them and theirs. 
Now, they have an eye on the surplus at this moment. I have an eye also 
on that surplus, which makes me peculiarly interested in this question ; I 
want to apply it to the repeal of the taxes on knowledge ; and by spread¬ 
ing sound information among the people, doing something for their future 
happiness and prosperity .”—Speech of Kt. Hon. T. Milner Gibson, M.P., 
Manchester, January 26, 1853. 

t Annual Register, vol. xci. p. 2. 




16 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[panic II. 


which had been for many years engaged in the struggle for the 
overthrow of the Corn-Laws, threw its energies into the agita- 
tation for a reduction of expenditure; whilst the approaching 
year of the Great Exhibition tended to hold in check ideas of a 
warlike nature, and to make it the fashion, for a time at least, 
to profess a faith in the tendency of the world towards peace. 

The consequence of this state of things was a constant re¬ 
duction of the military and naval expenditure from 1847 to 
1851, as will be seen on reference to the preceding tables. 
During this time, w T ith the exception of the usual letters from 
Admiral Napier in the Times on the state of the navy, and a 
volume published at the close of 1850, by Sir Francis Head, on 
“ The Defenceless State of the Nation/’ which was calculated 
to throw ridicule on the subject by its exaggerations, little was 
said about a French invasion. Even the Great Duke’s letter 
was for a time forgotten. But only for a time, the occasion 
alone was wanting to revive the panic with increased violence. 
The country had been rapidly advancing towards that state of 
prosperity when its timidity and pugnacity seem equally sus¬ 
ceptible of excitement. Under the influence of free trade and 
the gold discoveries, our exports, w r hich in 1848 had been 
£52,849,000, amounted in 1851 to £74,448,000: they were 
destined to reach, in 1852, £78,076,000 ; and to rise in 1853 
to £98,933,000 ; thus being nearly doubled in five years. The 
revenue was in a satisfactory state, and the landed interest had 
nearly recovered from the despondency into which it had been 
thrown by the repeal of the Corn Laws. 

It was under these circumstances, that the coup d'etat of De¬ 
cember 2nd, 1851, and the re-election of Louis Napoleon as 
President of the Bepublic, with augmented powers, furnished 
the occasion for the outburst of the second invasion-panic. 
From that day to the meeting of Parliament, on the 3rd Feb¬ 
ruary, a large portion of the metropolitan journals teemed with 
letters and articles of the most exciting character. The course 
pursued by these writers was inconsistent enough. They com¬ 
menced by assailing personally, with unmeasured invective, the 
author of the coup d'etat, and heaping contemptuous epithets 
on the French people who had rewarded him with their suf¬ 
frages \ and then forthwith they raised the cry of invasion, and 
proclaimed our defenceless condition !—Conduct which, as will 


1852.] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


17 


be seen, drew on them the animadversions of the leading states¬ 
men, on the meeting of Parliament. At the same time, there 
was the usual eruption of pamphlets, written chiefly by military 
and naval officers, containing projects for every variety of de¬ 
fensive armament. 

In the debate on the address, on the first night of the session 
of 1852, almost every speaker alluded with disapprobation to 
the inflammatory language of the press. 

“ I say that it is more than imprudent/’ said the Earl of 
Derby, “that it is more than injudicious, that it is more than 
folly, that it is perfect madness, at one and the same time to 
profess a belief in the hostile intentions of a foreign country, 
and to parade before the eyes of that very people the supposed 
inability of this country to defend itself; to magnify the re¬ 
sources of your supposed assailant, and to point out how easy 
would be the invasion if not the subjugation of this country 
(though, thank God! the most violent have not yet spoken of 
subjugation); but to speak of that invasion, accompanying it 
with details of the fearful amount of horror and bloodshed 
which, under any circumstances, must attend it, and then, in 
the same breath, to assail with every term of obloquy, of vitu¬ 
peration, and abuse, the public and private character of the 
man who wields that force which you say is irresistible.”* 

And again, speaking of the disposition of the President, he 
said:— 

“ My Lords, I will go further, and I will say that I firmly 
believe that the French President personally is fully disposed 
to entertain friendly relations and to maintain a pacific policy 
towards other nations. But, my Lords, I think that if any¬ 
thing could divert him from that course, if he were a man 
likely to be worked upon by his own personal feelings—if any¬ 
thing were likely to divert him from that course of policy which 
I believe his inclination and his sense of the interests of France 
are likely to make him take, it would be the injudicious and, I 
may add, unjustifiable language which has been made use of by 
a large portion of the public press of this country, in com¬ 
menting on the character of the French Government and 
people.”! 


* Hansard, cxix. 22. 


+ Hansard , cxix. 21. 




18 THE THREE PANICS. [PANIC II. 

In the House of Commons, on the same occasion, Lord John 
Russell, then Prime Minister, observed :— 

“ But really, to hear or read some of the letters, some of the 
language used by some portions of the press, one would imagine 
that these two great nations, so wealthy, so similar in enlighten¬ 
ment, were going to butcher one another, merely to try what 
would be the effect of percussion caps and needle guns.”* 

Both these statesmen, however, afforded substantial justifica¬ 
tion to the alarmists whom they thus eloquently rebuked, by 
intimating their determination to “ prepare our defences,” in 
order to make “ invasion impossible.” The public, of course, 
attributed their language to diplomatic reserve, whilst their 
action was quietly accepted as proof of impending danger. 

As we were destined during the year 1852 to. witness the re¬ 
organisation of the militia, and an augmentation of our army 
and navy, and as the arguments by which these increased arma¬ 
ments were voted will be found to have exclusive reference to the 
danger of an invasion from France, it will be well to turn 
for a moment to the tables, and see exactly what the French 
Government had been doing since the downfall of Louis 
Philippe. Though it is rather beside the question, for we have 
never professed to match our land forces against those of France, 
it may be premised, that the French Army was undergoing some 
reduction, and that the National Guard, whose million of 
armed men had been referred to with such alarming emphasis 
by Lord Palmerston in 1845, was being rapidly disbanded, and 
was destined ere long to disappear, with the exception of a 
nominal force kept up in a few large cities. 

A reference to the tables will show, that, during the years 
1849, 1850, and 1851, the period which intervened between the 
first and second panic, the strength of the French navy, 
whether measured by the total expenditure, the number of men, 
or the number of ships in commission, was considerably less 
that in any three years since 1840. It will be seen, that the 
French expenditure, with the number of men and of ships in 
commission, both absolutely and in proportion to the British, 
was at the lowest point in 1851, the year which witnessed the 
renewal of the panic. These facts were stated at the time by 


* Hansard, cxix. 102. 






THE THRER PANICS. 


1852 .] 


19 


those who resisted the increase of our armaments and confronted 
the alarm of invasion; but their statements were discredited. 

On the 16th February, 1852, Lord John Russell explained to 
the House his proposed Militia Bill. He alluded, at the outset, 
to his measure of 1848, the failure of which he frankly attri¬ 
buted to the necessity he was then under of proposing an in¬ 
crease of taxation. To demonstrate that he was not now 
acting under the pressure of the panic, he thus referred to the 
state of things under which he had formerly brought forward a 
similar project,— “ At the time at which I then addressed the 
House, Louis Philippe was on the throne of France ; there was 
no apparent revolution at hand; the disposition of that king 
was known to be pacific; his counsels were moderate and 
wise.”* This is an illustration of that curious feature in these 
political delusions, that we are always called on to forget them 
as soon as they have served the purpose for which they are 
created. A convenient veil is here drawn over the panic caused 
by Prince Joinville’s pamphlet, the Duke of "Wellington’s 
letter, the Spanish marriages, the predicted flight of the Guards 
from London, and every other incident that had played its part 
prior to 1848. Lord John Russell now proposed a plan by 
which it should be possible to enrol for the first year not less 
than 70,000 men; in the next year, 100,000; in the third, 
about 120,000 ; with the possibility of increase to 150,000. 
But the Militia Bill was destined to be fatal to the ministry of 
which he had been premier since the fall of Sir Robert Peel’s 
Government in 1846. 

A word of explanation is necessary to throw a light on what 
followed. During the recess of Parliament, Lord Palmerston, 
the Foreign Minister, had withdrawn from the Government. 
From the explanations which now took place, it appeared that 
although there had been anterior differences between him and his 
colleagues, indeed between the Sovereign and her Foreign 
Secretary, the immediate cause of his retirement was the un¬ 
authorised expression of his approbation of the coup d eiat of 
December 2nd, 1851. It was foreseen that this secession 
menaced the existence of a Cabinet already weak, and a few 
days only were required, after the meeting of Parliament, to 


* Hansard, cxix. 551. 
c 2 



20 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC II. 


verify this view. On the motion to bring in the Local 
Militia Bill, on the 20th February, 1852, Lord Palmerston 
carried an amendment for giving a more extended scope to the 
measure, which was followed by the resignation of Lord John 
Bussell’s Government, and the advent of Lord Derby to 
power. 

On the first exposition of his views as Prime Minister, on 
the 27th February, the Earl of Derby spoke as follows:— 

“ My Lords, I believe that our naval forces were never in a 
better or more effective condition than at this moment. I be¬ 
lieve that for all purposes, whether as regards the protection of 
our own shores, the defence of the numerous and distant colonies 
which form our empire, or for the protection of that extended 
commerce which crosses every sea and fills every port in the 
wide world, I believe that, for all such purposes, our navy was 
never in a more effective state than it is now.” 

As soon as the new ministry were constituted, they prepared 
another Militia Bill, which was introduced into the House by 
the Home Secretary, on the 29th March. This measure met 
the approval of Lord Palmerston, to whose energetic support it 
mainly owed its success. He could almost, indeed, claim to be 
its author; for it transpired, incidentally, in the course of the 
discussion, that his frequent questions in the House, in the 
time of Sir Pobert Peel’s ministry, had had the effect of in¬ 
ducing them to prepare a measure for revising the Militia laws, 
but a change of ministry had prevented them from bringing it 
forward, t Lord Palmerston, moreover, in the course of the 
debates, identified himself more exclusively with the policy of 
the Bill, by stating that he had pressed on Lord John Bussell, 
in 1846, the necessity of a similar measure. J To him, also, 
was left the task of finding arguments for the Bill, and it must 
be admitted that he fulfilled the duties of an advocate with a 
courage, at least, that could not be surpassed. 

The reasons assigned by Mr. Walpole for introducing the 
measure, however ably stated, were so cautiously guarded by 
disavowals of any special ground of alarm, and so prudently 
seasoned with pledges for our peaceful foreign relations, that 


* Hansard , cxix. p. 894. t Mr. Sidney Herbert, Hansard, cxix. 587. 

X Hansard , cxix. 575. 





1852 .] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


21 


they were almost as good arguments for his opponents as his 
own party ; whilst the more general motives assigned, founded 
on vague and shadowy assumptions of possible danger, would 
have been equally indisputable if our existing navy had been 
ten times as efficient as it had just been declared to he by 
Lord Derby. 

Lord Palmerston took a much bolder course. Falling back 
on his own idea of steam-navigation having given an advantage 
to our neighbour, or, to use his favourite phrase, having “ thrown 
a bridge across the Channel,” he now insisted on the practica¬ 
bility of fifty or sixty thousand men being transported, without 
notice, from Cherbourg to our shores in a single night. Such a 
declaration had not been before heard from one holding: high, 
rank in that House. It overleapt all reliance on our diplomacy, 
or our fleets ; and, strange enough in one who had offered 
such eager congratulations to the author of the coup d’etat , the 
assumption of such a danger as this implied that our neighbour 
was little better than a buccaneer. But this hypothesis of 
sudden invasion is absolutely indispensable for affording the 
alarmists any standing ground whatever. Take away the 
liability to surprise, by admitting the necessity of a previous 
ground of quarrel, and the delays of a diplomatic correspondence, 
and you have time to collect your fleet, and drill* an army. 
Admit the argument of suddenness of danger, and the only 
way of preventing your coasts and metropolis from being 
invaded by an army of fifty or sixty thousand men, is by being 
always prepared with an organised and a disciplined force to 
repel them. 

It was natural that such views should not pass unquestioned 
by intelligent professional men; among whom the veteran 
General who represented Westminster was prominent in 
showing the practical difficulties of sending large expeditions 
over sea, and in demonstrating that “ the sudden arrival of a 
French army in this metropolis was simply an impossibility.”! 
Here is a specimen of the undaunted courage with which Lord 


* “ Give us a good stout man, and let us have him for sixty days to train 
him, and he will be as good a soldier as you can have .”—Evidence of Loim 
Hardinge, Commander-in-Chief before Sebastopol Committee. 

t Hansard, cxx. p. 1040. 




THE THREE PANICS. 


22 


[panic II. 


Palmerston set at nought the experience of the hero of a score 
of battle fields :— 

“ My hon. and gallant friend (Sir De Lacy Evans) stated, 
that in collecting a large force for the purpose of crossing the 
Channel, such an extensive preparation must be made as would 
give us ample notice; but he is much mistaken with regard to 
the want of facilities which neighbouring countries possess for 
collecting together a formidable force and bringing it over to 
this country, without our having lengthened, or, indeed, even 
timely notice. The very ship despatched to convey to this 
country intelligence of the threatened armament would pro¬ 
bably not reach our shores much sooner than the hostile ex¬ 
pedition.’’ * 

The naval authorities in the House were also heard on a 
question in which the character and efficiency of their service 
were so much involved. Admiral Berkeley, who had been a 
Lord of the Admiralty under the previous Government, re¬ 
marked that, “ Lord Palmerston had spoken of the French 
being enabled to raise 50,000 or 60,000 men in Cherbourg ; but 
he did not tell the House how these men were to be transported 
across the Channel;” and the gallant speaker went on to say, 
“ he would tell the noble Lord, the member for Tiverton, that 
it would take fifty or sixty vessels to embark those men he 
spoke of as being ready for action at Cherbourg, and it would 
take as many more vessels to protect them in the Channel.” 
He added, with a view to allay the “ absurd panic that had 
lately run through the country,” that with an addition of 
4,000 men and 1,000 boys to the navy, he would undertake to 
say that they would have a fleet of thirty steamers in the 
Channel, none of which would be under 900 or 1,000 tons, and 
that in the presence of such a force, he would defy any enemy 
to attempt a surprise; adding, characteristically, that “ he 
should like to see them attempt to disembark on our shores in 
the face of such a force.”-)* 

Incidental to these debates, was a motion made on the 30th 
March, by Mr. Anderson (the head of the great Peninsular and 
Oriental Steam Ship Company), “ to show how invasion might 
be rendered impossible,” in which he called attention to the 


* Hansard , cxx. p. 293. 


t Hansard , cxx. pp. U3G-7. 




THE THREE PANICS. 


23 


1852 .] 

Report of a Committee, appointed at his instance in 1849, which 
had recommended the Government to retain the services of our 
numerous merchant steamers as a reserve force for the defence 
of our shores. He pointed out the great advantage this country 
possessed over all others in the number of its merchant 
steamers; that for every horse-power possessed by France, we 
had twenty (in sailing vessels our superiority in tonnage being 
only as five to one); he stated, from evidence before the Com¬ 
mittee, that upwards of a thousand of these vessels could bo 
made available in case of war, and pledged himself to produce a 
private tradesman, who, for £200 would fit the largest steamer 
to carry the heaviest pivot gun; and he alleged that the 
private Company with which he was connected could alone 
furnish vessels enough to form a line within signal distance of 
each other from the Channel Islands to the North Foreland.* 
Mr. Anderson went into the subject with a thorough practical 
knowledge of all its details, and carried the House, as he had 
carried his Committee, with him. His motion was accepted by 
the Government, but never acted on. 

This motion was, however, only an episode in that great 
debate of the session, which reflected the panic that had been 
excited in certain quarters out of doors. In spite of the oppo¬ 
sition of the liberals and the free-trade party, the Militia Bill 
was passing through its various stages; and Lord Palmerston’s 
theory of a nocturnal invasion, by a large army, continued to 
be the jDivot of the debate. The weight of professional authority 
having gone so strongly against this theory, civilians were now 
encouraged to speak out; and Lord John Russell, towards the 
close of the debate on the second reading, remarked, with un¬ 
wonted bluntness, tJiat “ he did not wish to be mixed up with 
those who entertained apprehensions of the sudden arrival in 
this country of 50,000 hostile troops in a single night, without 
notice of any kind being received in this country; or that we 
should hear of an army marching up to London without our 
having had any previous symptoms of hostility. Those were 
notions which were founded upon panic rather than on reason¬ 
able calculation.It was natural, too, that those members of 
the House who were identified with that body of British rcpre- 


* Hansard, cxx. pp. 369—379. 


t Hansard , cxx. 1090. 







24 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC II. 


sentatives residing at foreign capitals, wliom Burke has 
designated “ licensed spies,” should have revolted at such an 
imputation of want of vigilance on their part as was implied in 
this argument of sudden invasion, and they found an ardent 
and eloquent defender in the present Sir Bobert Peel, who had 
just previously withdrawn from the field of diplomacy :— 

“ What, I should like to know,” said he, “is meant by the 
term ‘ sudden invasion’ which is so often used, but with little 
consideration ? The noble lord, the member for Tiverton 
(Lord Palmerston), has defined it thus : ‘We have to provide/ 
he says, ‘ not against a danger which may happen in six or 
eight months, but which may happen in a month or a fortnight, 
from the time when it is first apprehended.’ I ask the House, 
and I ask the country, is it possible to admit this definition of 
the noble Lord ? Let the House for one moment figure to 
itself, the noble Lord sitting in Downing-street, with all the 
threads of European diplomacy, concentrated, like so many 
electric wires in his cabinet; and let the House then figure to 
itself the surprise of the noble Lord, on being told that that day 
fortnight 150,000 men were to be landed on the shores of Britain. 
Ho you think the noble Lord believes this to be possible ? Hot 
at all.” * 

Following after nearly the whole of these speakers, and on 
the last night of the debate on the second reading of the 
Militia Bill, Lord Palmerston thus manfully stood his ground :— 
“ The application of steam to navigation has in effect made a 
bridge over the Channel, and has given the means of quick 
attack—an attack on a scale of magnitude such as did not exist 
before. Again, it is said we should know beforehand, if any 
preparations were being made. I say you might not know, 
because by the internal arrangements of railways, the distribu¬ 
tion of troops is such that 50,000 or 60,000 men might be 
collected at Cherbourg before you knew anything of the matter ; 
aad those who have seen what those immense works are, must 
be perfectly aware that such a number of men could walk from 
the quay into their vessels, as easily as they could walk into 
their barrack-yard. A single night would bring them over, 
and all our naval preparations, be they what they might, could 


* Hansard , cxx. p. 1078. 




1852 .] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


25 


not be relied on to prevent tlie arrival of such an expedition, as 
no batteries or gun-boats we might have on our shores could be 
relied on to prevent the landing of the expedition when it had 
arrived.”* 

With what a grim smile of incredulity would the threat of 
this nocturnal apparition have been received by both sides of 
the House if it had been urged in support of the Militia Bill of 
1848, when the country gentlemen were too much haunted with 
the free-trade spectre, and the commercial members too 
seriously preoccupied with their distresses to have allowed them¬ 
selves to be scared by so fantastical an appeal to their imagina¬ 
tion ! But the “Country Party” were now in power, their 
protectionist alarms were dissipated, and they welcomed the 
Militia Bill with acclamation. An increasing revenue, with a 
surplus in the Exchequer, and a prosperous trade, insured the 
success of the bill; which, however, was not passed without a 
determined opposition, led on by the free-trade party. In the 
course of the struggle, it was mentioned by Mr. Moffatt,t as a 
proof of the unpopularity of the bill, that nearly 800 petitions 
had been presented against it, and not one in its favour. It 
was certainly a singular spectacle, to see the representatives of 
the great centres of population and wealth, with the metropoli¬ 
tan members at their head, resisting a measure which had been 
brought forward on the plea that it was indispensable for their 
security! 

Where then could have been the “ panic ” ? will be the 
obvious inquiry. This question was frequently and sarcastically 
asked in the course of the debate ; and it was answered in 
terms not over complimentary to the parties referred to. Mr. 
Hume bluffly remarked, that, “ our present panics were not due, 
as in times past, to the old women, but to our having too many 
clubs about London, containing so many half-pay officers, who 
had nothing to do but to look about for themselves and their 
friends. These were the people who wrote to the newspapers, 
anxious to bring grist to the mill somehow or other. And 
Captain Scobell, alluding to the same subject, said—“If he 
added a remark not very complimentary to the other branch of 


* Hansard , cxx. p. 1104. + Hansard , cxx. p. 1116. 

x Hansard, cxx. p. 285. 





26 THE three panics. [panic II. 

the service, it should be jocularly ; hut the alarm about invasion 
was chiefly expressed by soldiers, from the illustrious Duke 
downwards. Sir Francis Head was a soldier; and so was the 
‘ Swiss Colonel ’; and many of them had, by their writings, 
helped to raise and keep up the alarm. And the reason was 
plain; they could not comprehend the capabilities of resistance 
that might be made on the ocean, and especially the resources 
that had been put into our hands by the power of steam.”'* 

Lord Derby’s Government having passed their Militia Bill, 
empowering them to raise 80,000 men, besides other measures, 
a dissolution took place on the first of July, and the new Par¬ 
liament assembled for a short session before Christmas. 

In the meantime, two events had taken place—the death of 
the Duke of Wellington, and the announcement of the ap¬ 
proaching re-establishment of the Empire in France—which 
were exercising a considerable influence on the public mind. 
The former occurrence had naturally attracted universal atten¬ 
tion to the biography of the Great Warrior, whose military 
exploits filled the pages of the public journals, became the 
engrossing theme of our public speakers, and resounded from 
even many a pulpit. Public attention was thus carried back to 
the long and mutually destructive wars which we had waged 
with France, and it was but natural that some of the old 
national animosity should have been revived. This feeling 
received a great impulse from what was occurring on the other 
side of the Channel. By a singular coincidence, the imposing 
national tribute of a public funeral in St. Paul’s, on the 18th No¬ 
vember, 1852, was followed by the voting for the Empire in France 
on the 21st. The historical painter might have represented the 
third Napoleon rising from the yet open tomb of the vanquisher 
of the first! What wonder, if in some minds there was the 
irritating consciousness that all the great deeds of the departed 
hero had not borne permanent fruits ? The feeling of appre¬ 
hension, however, predominated. The traditional terror con¬ 
nected with the name of Bonaparte was revived ; people began 
again to talk of invasion, and before Christmas the alarmists 
had more complete possession of the field than at any previous 
time. 


* Hansard, cxix. p. 1449. 




THE THREE PANICS. 


27 


1852 .] 

On the 6th December, 1852, Lord Malmesbury formally 
announced, in the House of Lords, the election of the Emperor 
of the French. He spoke in terms of the most unqualified 
confidence of the friendly and pacific intentions of the ruler 
and people of France. “I believe/'’ said bis lordship, “that 
the Emperor himself, and the great mass of his people, deeply 
feel the necessity, for the interests of both countries, that we 
should be on a footing of profound peace; and, on the other 
hand, they see the great folly and crime which it would be on 
either side to provoke war. They must know that a war, as 
far as it would lead to the subjugation of either country by the 
other, is an absurdity; that neither country, so great, so power¬ 
ful, and so independent, could in any manner subjugate the 
other, and that, therefore, war must be as useless as cruel, and 
as inglorious as useless/’* 

Nothing could have been more satisfactory than this an¬ 
nouncement, had it not been accompanied by a practical com¬ 
mentary elsewhere, which, in the eyes of the unsophisticated 
public, converted these excellent sentiments into hollow diplo¬ 
matic phrases. On the very same evening on which this com¬ 
munication was made to the Lords, the Government proposed 
in the Commons an addition of 5,000 seamen and 1,500 marines 
to the navy, on the ground, as alleged by the Secretary of the 
Admiralty, that “the time had arrived when, with the most 
pacific intentions, it was absolutely necessary that we should 
put our Channel defences in a new position, and man the 
Channel with a large force/’t Had it been his studied purpose 
to furnish arguments to the alarmists out of doors, nothing 
could have been contrived more calculated to swell the panic cry 
of invasion than the tone of mystery and reserve with which 
the naval secretary deprecated all discussion on this vote :— 

“ He trusted, that if he should then decline to enter into any 
detailed information with respect to that vote, no gentleman 
would attribute such a course to a desire to treat him indi¬ 
vidually with discourtesy, but would feel that it was owing to 
the determination at which the Government had arrived, after the 
most serious consideration , that it would be better , under existing cir¬ 
cumstances, not to enter into any particulars with respect to that 


* Hansard, cxxiii. 975. 


t Hansard, cxxiii. 1006. 







28 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC II. 


course. He asked the present vote from the House of Com¬ 
mons, not as a vote of confidence in any particular ministry, 
but as a vote of confidence in that Executive which, whatever 
party might be at the head of the Government, must necessarily 
be charged with the defence of the country, must necessarily be 
in possession of secret and important intelligence , and must neces¬ 
sarily be the fitting and only judge how far that intelligence ought to 
be communicated to the House”* 

If any thing could add to the mistrust in the public mind 
which this was calculated to produce, it was the readiness with 
which the leading statesmen on the opposition side of the 
House accepted the doctrine of implicit confidence in the Exe¬ 
cutive. Sir Francis Baring, in expressing his approval of the 
proposed increase, remarked, that “ no one knew more than him¬ 
self how difficult it was to state the grounds for any increase. 
It was for the Government to state, on their responsibility, 
what they thought necessary for the service of the country, and 
he was not one of those who would oppose what they thought 
necessary.This doctrine, which, if generally acted upon, 
would be an abdication of one of the chief functions of the 
House of Commons, proceeds upon a double fallacy—First, in 
assuming that the Executive can, in these days, be in possession 
of secrets unknown to the public respecting the warlike prepa¬ 
rations or the political attitude of other countries ; and, secondly, 
in assuming, that, if the Government possessed any such secret 
information, there could be half as much inconvenience from 
disclosing it to the House of Commons as from the adoption of 
this principle of abject confidence in the Ministry. 

The proposed increase in the navy was, however, carried 
without a division. An addition of 2,000 men and 1,000 horses 
for the artillery was also voted. There had been 3,000 men 
previously added to the army, and, as we have seen, power was 
given to the Government to raise 80,000 men for the militia, 
50,000 for the first year, and 30,000 more for the second. All 
this was achieved during their few months of office by the Earl 
of Derby’s Government, who, so long as they were engaged in 
making these additions to our establishments, met with support 
from their ojiponents ; but, that task achieved, thenceforth the 


* Hansard, cxxiii. 1006—7. 


t Hansard, cxxiii. 1013. 




1852 .] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


29 


doctrine of implicit confidence in the Executive was no longer 
extended to them, and they were overthrown a few days after¬ 
wards in a division on the budget, which was virtually a vote 
of want of confidence. They were succeeded by Lord Aber¬ 
deen’s administration. 

This increase in our armaments failed to allay, in the slightest 
degree, the agitation of the alarmists. It seems to he the pecu¬ 
liar characteristic of these panics, that they who fall under 
their influence are deprived of all remembrance of what has 
been already done for their security. This state of mind is 
natural enough in those who embrace the hypothesis that we 
are in nightly danger of an invasion, without notice or provo¬ 
cation, by an army of 50,000 men. These persons do not 
employ their minds in discussing the probable grounds of 
quarrel with France, or in speculating on the chances of a 
rupture; but they assume the constant disposition for war on 
the part of our neighbour, as well as his complete preparation 
for attack. From the moment that such a theory of invasion 
as this is adopted, any plan of defence must necessarily be in¬ 
sufficient for security. It is to this state of mind that all the 
writers and speakers on the subject addressed themselves,* as may 

* The following are specimens :— 

A Letter on the Defence of England by Corps of Volunteers and Militia, 
by Sir Chas. Jas. Napier. 

The Invasion of England, by an Englishman and a Civilian. 

National Defences, by Montagu Gore, Esq. 

A Letter to Lord John Russell, containing Suggestions for forming a 
Reserve Force, signed “George Paget.” 

Memorandum on the Necessity of a Secretary of State for our Defence 
and War Establishments. 

Proposals for the Defence of the Country by means of a Volunteer 
Force, by John Kinloch, late Captain Second Life Guards. 

Defensive Position of England, by Captain Chas. Knox 

The Peril of Portsmouth, by Jas. Fergusson, Esq. 

A Plan for the formation of a Maritime Militia, by Captain C. Elliot. 

Observations on Commissariat, Field Service, and Home Defences, by 
Sir Randolph I. Routh. 

The National Defence of England, by Baron P. E. Translated by 
Capt. J. E. Addison. 

Thoughts on National Defence, by Rear-Admiral Bowles. 

Brief Suggestions on the Subject of War and Invasion. 

Notes on the Defensive Resources of Great Britain, by Captain Fyers, 
Half-pay Royal Artillery. 



30 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[panic IT. 


be seen by a mere glance at the titles of the pamphlets, which 
issued in unprecedented numbers from the press in the present 
year (1852). 

The alarm was constantly stimulated by startling paragraphs 
in the newspapers. One day the French army at Rome was 
reported to be chafing and dissatisfied, because it could not share 
in the invasion of England and the sack of London; the next, 
there were whispered revelations of a secret plan divulged by 
General Changarnier for invading England and seizing the 
metropolis (which he publicly contradicted) ; then we were told 
of a plot for securing a naval station in the West Indies ; next, 
the French Government had sent an order for steam frigates to 
Messrs. Napier, of Glasgow (which was contradicted on the 
authority of those gentlemen) ; there was a cry of alarm at the 
apparition of a French ship of war at Dover, which, it afterwards 
turned out, had been driven in by stress of weather; then there 
were small French vessels of war seen moving about the Isle of 
Wight, to the surprise of some of our authorities, who should 
have known that the French Government are bound by con¬ 
vention to send cruisers into the Channel to see that the fisheries 
regulations are observed by their fishermen; and then came the 
old story of French vessels being seen taking soundings in our 
waters, though, as every body knows, the most perfect charts of 
the Channel, published under the authority of the Admiralty, 
may be purchased for a few shillings. 

But these little paragraphs, which flew from journal, to 
journal, would have fallen harmless on the public ear, if they 
had not been accompanied by alarming reports from “ our own 
correspondents ” in Paris, of the immense increase going on in 
the French navy. Besides, there was the eloquent silence of our 
own Secretary of the Admiralty when he proposed the aug¬ 
mentation of our navy. What could that reserve and secrecy 
mean, but something too frightful to reveal P True, the French 
army had been reduced 50,000 men, and the National Guard 
was practically dissolved, but that did not concern us ;—what 
object could a Bonaparte possibly have in doubling the strength 
of his navy, if it was not to attack England ? To show to 
what an extent this delusion gained credence, let us quote from 
an article in that generally accurate historical record, the Annual 


1852 .] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


31 


Register for September 21, 1852 :—“ The French have been 
making gigantic efforts to raise their navy to a formidable 
strengthand, after entering into many details to show the 
large additions made to their fleet, the article thus concludes :— 
“ Their navy seems to have doubled in effective strength within 
the two years of the Prince President’s power.”* So strong 
were the feelings of suspicion, jealousy, and apprehension on 
this subject at the re-assembling of Parliament in February, 1853, 
that Mr. Ewart, with a view of offering a public denial to these 
alarming rumours, took the extraordinary course of addressing 
a letter of inquiry to M. Ducos, the Minister of Marine, whose 
answer, which obtained general publicity at the time, is here 
reproduced:— 

“ Paris, February 25, 1853. 

“ Sir, —The questions which you do me the honour to put in 
your letter of the 19th of February might perhaps appear to 
me unusual, if my mind really entertained the strange ideas 
which some persons appear to ascribe to me in England. 

“ But, far from considering these questions indiscreet or 
inopportune, I rejoice at them, because they afford me an oppor¬ 
tunity of giving you the complete assurance of my peaceful 
sentiments. 

“I should consider it as the greatest of misfortunes if a 
serious misunderstanding should break out between the two 
nations; and I desire with all my heart, that the best intelli¬ 
gence may continue to prevail between them. 

“ Your newspapers make much stir about our presumed war¬ 
like preparations. I confine myself to declaring to you that I 
have not armed a single gun-boat, stirred a single cannon, or 
equipped a single sailor. I remain the calm spectator of the 
enormous expenses which you are making to conjure away an 
imaginary danger ; and I admire the facility with which you 
augment your budget when no real necessity prescribes it. 

“ If the members of your Parliament, who are so pre-occupied 
with our projects of invasion, would give themselves the 
trouble of paying us a short visit, they would be more surprised 


* Annual Register, p. 148, “Chronicle.” 






32 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[panic II. 


than I am myself, perhaps, at the extreme readiness with which 
the rumour (almost amounting to a pleasantry) of our supposed 
warlike preparations has been received among you. 

“ I thank you, Sir, for allowing me to establish a certain 
degree of intercourse between us ; and I beg you to accept the 
expression of my most distinguished sentiments. 

“ Theodore Ducos. 

“Monsieur Ewart, Membre de la Chambre 
des Communes, &c.” 

With M. Ducos, the writer of these pages had not the honor 
of a personal acquaintance; but he hapjjened to be on 
terms of very intimate friendship with one of his colleagues, 
with whom he was in correspondence at the time, and from 
whom he received the following note, which had been written 
to him by the Minister of Marine, at the moment of receiving 
the letter of inquiry from Mr. Ewart. As this letter was penned 
by M. Ducos under circumstances which precluded any idea 
of concealment or misrepresentation, it will be read with pro¬ 
bably greater interest than the more formal communication, 
especially that part which refers to the cabinet device, common 
to both countries, of resorting to imaginary terrors as a means 
of swelling budgets and strengthening majorities :— 

“ My Dear Colleague, 

“Do you read the English journals and the debates in Par¬ 
liament ? 

“Yerily, I am astonished at the din they are making on the 
other side of the Channel. Will you believe that I have just 
received a letter from a Member of the House of Commons, 
asking me seriously if the armaments we are preparing are des¬ 
tined for a war with England, and if we are pushing this con¬ 
stant augmentation of the forces of the two nations in a spirit 
of rivalry ! I send you the letter, that you may not doubt mv 
veracity. Will you answer it, or shall I P 

“ Our armaments ! forsooth. What does it mean ? You 
know as well as I that to this day we have not armed a poor 
little boat beyond our ordinary fleet. With a budget reduced 
by forty millions (francs) compared with the budgets of Louis 
Philippe, we are obliged to confine ourselves within the nar¬ 
rowest limits. 


1852 .] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


33 


“ England increases her budget of this year by sixteen 
millions (francs); she forms her militia; she recruits her 
sailors ; she makes her coasts bristle with heavy artillery. We 
look on tranquilly, without comprehending all these efforts, and 
without having for a single instant the idea or the apprehension 
that she is going to invade us. 

“ Mr. Ewart asks me in confidence, and whispering in my ear, 
if we are actuated by sentiments of rivalry in pushing our 
armaments ! I declare that I cannot understand it. We have 
not armed one vessel, we have not touched one gun, we have 
not equipped one soldier, we have not recruited one cabin-boy : 
and they ask us seriously if we are a very thunderbolt of war ? 
It seems to me, that the question might be more seasonably 
addressed to the members of the English Cabinet, who are 
covering themselves with armour, and who possibly may not be 
very much distressed by these imaginary terrors (as we have some - 
times seen among ourselves), inasmuch as they enable them to swell 
their budget , and serve to strengthen a somewhat uncertain majority 
in Parliament. 

“ Ah ! my dear colleague, you see that all the geese do not 
come from the United States, or swim in the Seine. You per¬ 
ceive that the question from London makes me quite merry. 
Forgive me, my dear colleague. I conclude by asking whether 
I must write to Mr. Ewart, and tell him, for his great satisfac¬ 
tion, that I am a greater friend to peace than himself, and that 
I look upon war between France and England as a universal 
calamity, which every wise man ought to exert himself to 
prevent. 

“ Theodore Ducos.” 

But this excellent attempt of Mr. Ewart to allay the public 
excitement produced no apparent effect. Nothing could surpass 
the child-like simplicity with which any of the above absurd 
and improbable rumours respecting the hostile preparations of 
the French were believed, unless it was the stolid scepticism 
with which all offers to demonstrate their falsehood were re¬ 
jected. 

It will be well to turn for an instant to the tables in the first 
page, and bring the question of the state of the French navy 
at this time to the test of those authentic figures. Let us take 
the specific allegation in the Annual Register for 1852 (Sept. 21), 

D 


34 THE THREE PANICS. [PANIC IT. 

tliat during tlie two years of tlie Prince President’s power, tlie 
French navy was doubled in effective force. Louis Napoleon 
was declared President of the Republic on the 20th December, 
1848, and was proclaimed Emperor on the 2nd Decojnber, 1852. 
His term of presidency may therefore be said to have extended 
over the years 1849, 1850, 1851, and 1852. The following 
figures give the total expenditure, the amount of wages in dock¬ 
yards, the number of seamen, and the number of ships in com¬ 
mission, for each of those years, and also for the two preceding 
years, 1847 being the last year of Louis Philippe’s reign, and 
1848 the first year of the Republic :— 



Wages in 

Total 

No. of No. of Ships 


Dockyards. 

Expenditure. 

Seamen, in Commission. 


£ 

£ 



1847 . 

. 448,333 

5,145,900 

32,169 

240 

1848 . 

. 444,085 

4,985,872 

28,760 

242 

1849 . 

. 456,155 

3,923,276 

27,063 

211 

1850 . 

. 432,837 

3,406,866 

24,679 

181 

1851 . 

. 416,773 

3,293,737 

22,316 

166 

1852 . 

. 425,811 

3,462,271 

25,016 

175 

Taking 

1851, the third 

year of the 

presidency 

of Louis 


Napoleon, when it will be admitted his policy must have had 
time to develop itself, and comparing it with the sixteen pre¬ 
vious years comprised in the table given in the first page, it 
will be seen that there is only one year (1835) when Franco 
had so few ships in commission, only two years (1835-6) in 
which she maintained so few seamen, and only five years 
(1835-6-7-8-9) when the total expenditure had been so low. 
And, instead of the effective force being doubled, it will be seen 
that a continual reduction had been going on during the first 
three years of the President’s rule, with only an insignificant 
rise in 1852. The diminution in the dockyard expenditure 
was, in both countries, proportionately less than in the other 
items, owing to the more costly nature of the new naval con¬ 
structions. 

If we take the average of the four years, 1849 to 1852, it will 
be found to be very much less than the average of the last ten 
years of Louis Philippe’s reign, and in looking back over the 
tables of both countries for the whole period, it will be found 



THE THREE PANICS. 


35 


1853 .] 

that scarcely at any time was the French navy so weak in com¬ 
parison with that of England, as in 1851. M. Ducos, in the 
above private letter to his colleague, asserts that his expenditure 
was forty millions (£1,600,000) less than that of his predecessor 
in the time of Louis Philippe; and if we compare the year 
1852 with that of 1847, it more than verifies his state¬ 
ment. 

It is now very well known, apart from the proofs afforded 
by these figures, that, owing to the embarrassed state of the 
French finances during the Pepublic, and the struggle, in¬ 
volving the very existence of social order, then going on, very 
little attention was paid to the Navy. A Parliamentary Com¬ 
mission, of which M. Dufaure was named “ Reporter,” was ap¬ 
pointed by the National Assembly in 1849, to inquire into the 
state of the navy, and two goodly quarto volumes were the 
result, with minutes of the evidence and the discussions; but its 
proceedings were brought to an untimely end by the coup d’etat 
of the 2nd December, 1851, and they led to but few practical 
results. 

It was under circumstances so little calculated to provoke our 
fear or resentment, that the cry of alarm and defiance was 
raised more loudly than ever through the winter and spring of 
1852-3. Men of the highest political and social rank resigned 
themselves to the excitement. Two cabinet ministers, who had 
gone to their constituents for re-election on taking office in 
Lord Aberdeen’s government, were afterwards called upon by 
their opponents in the House, to explain the violent language 
uttered by them at the hustings in allusion to the ruler and 
people of France.* 

“ I tell you,” said the Lord Lieutenant of Yorkshire, ad¬ 
dressing the militia of that county, “ the time is coming when 
everybody throughout this realm will have reason to be 
thankful that you have come forward to defend your hearths and 
homes. ”f 

Lord Mount-Edgcumbe, through the columns of a public 
journal, thus added fuel to the flame 1 “ I have received posi¬ 
tive information, which cannot be doubted, that the French are 


Hansard , exxiv. 2G7. 


+ Hansard , exxiv. >293.quoted. 
T) 2 





36 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC II. 

now striving to the very utmost to increase their naval force in 
every manner, and that arrangements have now been officially 
decided upon, to continue, year after year, similar exertions. I 
cannot give my authority, but trust that I shall be believed 
when I say that this information may be most thoroughly relied 
upon.” And the writer adds, by way of emphasis, “ I repeat, 
that the information I have received, of preparations, which can 
only be made for aggression, may be relied on.”* 

At the same time, the strictures of the leading journals as¬ 
sumed a more virulent tone towards the Chief of the French 
people. Such had been the withering influence of legislative 
restrictions and fiscal exactions upon the periodical press, that 
the publication of daily newspapers was restricted to the three 
capitals of the United Kingdom, and their circulation among 
twenty-six millions of people did not exceed, in the aggregate, 
sixty or seventy thousand copies daily. A monopoly of pub¬ 
licity was, indeed, virtually possessed by one London journal, 
whose conductors had thus the power of giving the impress of 
public opinion to whatever views they chose to espouse. The 
columns of this paper now teemed with the most violent 
denunciations of the French ruler, not unmixed with expres¬ 
sions of contempt for the people of France. One writerf of a 
series of impassioned invectives was betrayed into expressions 
not obscurely suggestive of assassination. 

A reaction was at length produced in a quarter supposed to 
be peculiarly influenced by this journal. That part of the com¬ 
munity most slow to enter upon any public movement, the 
merchants and bankers of London, convened a meeting by cir¬ 
cular of those “ who feel called upon at this time publicly to 
express their deep concern at witnessing the endeavours con¬ 
tinually made to create and perpetuate feelings of mistrust, ill- 
will, and hostility between the inhabitants of the two great 
nations of England and France,” and they took the unprece¬ 
dented step of sending to the Emperor of the French a depu¬ 
tation of leading citizens, carrying with them an address bear¬ 
ing more than a thousand signatures. 

On the meeting of Parliament, Mr. Disraeli took an oppor- 


* Times, February 7-12, 1853. 
t Letters of “ An Englishman,” in the Times. 




THE THREE PANICS. 


37 


1853.] 

tunity of drawing attention to these manifestations of hatred 
and terror towards France, declaring that it was “ extremely 
strange and startling, that, under such circumstances, an idea 
should have seemed to enter into almost every man’s brain, and 
an expression into every man’s mouth, that we are on the eve 
of a rupture with that country.” And, alluding to the gross 
attacks that had been levelled at the ruler of France, he said :— 
“ Remember, that all this time, while the French Government 
were quietly and diplomatically working with our Government 
for great objects of public benefit and advantage—that French 
Government was painted as corsairs and banditti,* watching to 
attack our coasts without the slightest provocation and without 
the slightest warning.” f 

Such was the state of feeling in the Spring of 1853. The 
nation had grown rich and prosperous with a rapidity beyond 
all precedent. Our exports had risen from £52,849,000 in 
1848, to £98,933,000 in 1853, having nearly doubled in five 
years. History shows that such a condition of things is fruitful 
in national follies and crimes, of which war is but the greatest. 
The time is not yet, though it will come, when people will be 
able to bear the blessings of prosperity and liberty, with peace. 
Whilst it seemed only a question upon whom we should ex¬ 
pend our exuberant forces,—whether on France or some other 
enemy, — we “ drifted ” into hostilities in an unexpected 
direction. The Turk was allowed to declare war for us against 
Russia, after we had agreed to the terms of peace offered for us 
on behalf of the latter country ! Could this have happened 
amid the commercial depression and gloom of 1848 ? 

The sudden change which was now to be witnessed in the 
temper of the public and the action of the Government was so 


* Take, as a specimen, the similitude of burglars, under which, when 
speaking of the danger of invasion, our brave and polished neighbours 
were described by a well-known writer of the day—a man of rank and a 
clergyman“ When burglars are about, we examine the scullery and 
cellar windows ; we try the fastenings of our doors, hang up bells to warn 
us, get dogs and police to watch for us, and go to bed in confidence that 
we are so prepared against an attack, that few are likely to attempt it.”— 
S. G. O., in Times ( Hansard , cxxiv. 290.) 

f Hansard , cxxiv. 263. 



38 THE TII11EE PANICS. [PANIC II. 

unlooked for, and so utterly beyond all rational calculation, that 
it might be compared to the shifting of the view in a kaleidos¬ 
cope. By way of bringing clearly, and in the fewest words, 
home to the reader’s apprehension what took place, let us illus¬ 
trate it by an individual case. Let us suppose an invalid to have 
been ordered, for the benefit of his health, to make the voyage 
to Australia and back. He left England in the month of 
February or March. The Militia was preparing for duty; the 
coasts and dockyards were being fortified; the navy, army, and 
artillery were all in course of augmentation; inspectors of 
artillery and cavalry were reported to be busy on the southern 
coasts: deputations from railway companies, it was said, had 
been waiting on the Admiralty and Ordnance to explain how 
rapidly the Commissariat and military stores could be trans¬ 
ported from the Tower to Hover or Portsmouth ; and the latest 
paragraph of news from the Continent was that our neighbours, 
on the other side of the Channel, were practising the em¬ 
barkation and disembarkation of troops by night! He left 
home amidst all these alarms and preparations for a French 
invasion. After an absence of four or five months, during 
which time he had no opportunity of hearing more recent news 
from Europe, he steps on shore at Liverpool, and the first 
newspaper he sees informs him that the English and French 
fleets are lying side by side in Besika Bay. An impending 
naval engagement between the two powers is naturally the idea 
that first occurs to him; but glancing at the leading article of 
the journal, he learns that England and France have entered 
into an alliance, and that they are on the eve of commencing a 
sanguinary war against Russia ! 

Leaving our imaginary individual to recover from his sur¬ 
prise, it may naturally be inferred, that he would feel some 
misgivings as to the prudence of placing ourselves at the mercy 
of a Ruler whom he had so recently heard denounced as little 
better than a bandit and a pirate. It would have certainly 
required a much smaller effort of the imagination to have 
suspected a plot between our ally and the enemy, by which the 
two Emperors, having joined their forces at Sebastopol, taken 
Our army captive, and destroyed our fleet, should have seized 
On Constantinople, and Egypt, and made a partition of Turkey, 


1853 .] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


39 


than to have believed in the possibility of an invasion by an 
army of fifty or sixty thousand Frenchmen in a single night, 
without notice or provocation. 

No such doubts, however, seem to have troubled the minds of 
our alarmists. They who had been the most vehement in their 
denunciations of the French Government, were now the 
strongest supporters of the Anglo-French alliance, and the 
loudest in clamouring for a war with FusSsia ; and for the next 
five years no more was heard of a French invasion. 


40 



THE THIRD PANIC. 
1859—1860—1861. 

(< We must liaye one more war with Russia for the independence 
and freedom of Europe, and, then, all will unite in favour of a 
reduction of armaments /'’ was the language with which some 
friends of peace reconciled themselves to the Crimean war. 
They have since seen additions made to the permanent armed 
forces of Europe, equalling probably in numbers the armies 
engaged in the Crimean struggle. So true is the saying of 
Rastiat, that “ the ogre, war, costs as much for his digestion 
as for his meals.” 

It hvas formerly said of us, that we were a warlike, but 
not a military nation. The Russian war has gone far to make 
us both. 

At the close of the great French war, in 1815, there were 
not wanting members of the Whig aristocracy, and a phalanx 
of distinguished popular leaders, to call back the nation to its 
old maxims against large standing armies in time of peace ; and 
who not only kept alive the jealousy of permanent camps and 
barracks, but opposed the formation even of clubs set apart 
exclusively for the “ Services,” and denounced the whole para¬ 
phernalia of a military organization. They did not accept war 
as the normal state of mankind; nor did they, discarding all 
reliance on the spirit and patriotism of the people, attempt to 
drill them like Russians or Austrians into mere warlike 
machines.* But at the termination of the Crimean war, the 


* The following is a specimen of the language in which our fathers were 
addressed by their great political leaders nearly half a century ago. And. 
these were the sentiments of the Hollands, Miltons, Lansdownes, Tierneys, 
Broughams, Bussells, and even the Grenvilles, and Wellesleys, of those 
days :—“ In despotic countries, it may be necessary to maintain great 
armies as seminaries of warlike spirit. The mind, which in such 
wretched countries has no noble object to employ its powers, almost 



THE THREE PANICS. 


41 


governing powers of this country seemed to be possessed but of 
one idea,—how Englishmen could be drilled and disciplined into 
a state of constant readiness for future continental campaigns. 


necessarily sinks into languor and lethargy, when it is not roused to the 
destructive phrenzy of war. The show of war during peace, may "be 
necessary to preserve the chief skill of the barbarian, and to keep up the 
only exalted feeling of the slave. The savage soon throws off habits of 
order; and the slave is ever prone to relapse into the natural cowardice of 
his debased condition. But in this mightiest of Free Communities, where 
no human faculty is suffered to lie dormant, and where habitual order, by 
co-operation, gives effect to the intense and incessant exertion of power, 
the struggles of honourable ambition, the fair contests of political part} 7 , 
the enterprizes of ingenious industry, the pursuits of elegant art, the 
fearless exercise of reason upon the most venerable opinions, and upon the 
acts of the highest authorities, the race of many for wealth, and of a few 
for power or fame, are abundantly sufficient to cultivate those powers, and 
to inspire those energies which, at the approach of war, submit to disci¬ 
pline, and quickly assume the forms of military science and genius. A 
free nation like ours, full of activity and boldness, and yet full of order, has 
all the elements and habits of an army, prepared by the happy frame of 
its society. We require no military establishments to nurse our martial 
spirit. It is our distinction, that we have ever proved ourselves in time of 
need, a nation of warriors, and that we never have been a people of soldiers. 
It is no refinement to say, that the national courage and intellect have 
acted with the more vigour on the approach of hostility, because we are 
not teazed and worried into petty activity; because a proud and serious 
people have not been degraded, in their own eyes, by acting their awkward 
part in holiday parade. Where arms are the national occupation, the in¬ 
tervals of peace are times of idleness, during which a part, at least, of the 
people must fit themselves for the general business, by exercising the 
talents and qualities which it requires. But where the pursuits of peace 
require the highest activity and the nature of the government calls forth 
the highest spirit, the whole people must always possess the materials 
and principles of a military character. Freemen are brave, because they 
rely on themselves. Liberty is our national point of honour. The prido 
of liberty is the spring of our national courage. The independent spirit, 
the high feeling of personal dignity, and the consequent sensibility to 
national honour, the true sources of that valour for which this nation has 
been renowned for ages, have been, in a great measure, created and pre¬ 
served by their being accustomed to trust to themselves for defence against 
invasion from abroad or tyranny at home If they lean on an army for 
safety, they will soon look to it with awe; and thus gradually lose those 
sentiments of self-respect and self-dependence, that pride of liberty 
which are the peculiar and the most solid defences of this country.”— 
Sir James Macintosh, House of Commons, February 28,1816. 




42 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC III. 


Hence we have seen a military activity never before known in 
England in a time of peace, as witness the columns of the daily 
press, filled with " Military and Naval Intelligence.” The 
object of those, who, by their rank and influence, have mainly 
contributed to produce this state of things, has not been con¬ 
cealed. “ What I want to see/’ said Mr. Sidney Herbert, 

“ is a military spirit pervading all classes of the community; 
but especially the influential and intelligent middle class. I 
believe the volunteer corps will effect that object to a largo 
extent; and, therefore, if for that alone, I think they ought to 
be encouraged.” * The consequence has been, not only an enor¬ 
mous increase of our military estimates, but such an outlay for 
permanent barracks and camps as to imply a complete abandon¬ 
ment, for the future, of our old habits and maxims as a self- 
relying and free people. The unfinished works at Aldersliott 
alone, have already cost £l,421,153,t—an amount, for the time 
and purpose, perhaps unexampled in the world’s history. Our 
business, however, must still be mainly with the navy. 

At the conclusion of the war, a grand Naval Review took 
place at Spithead, which is thus recorded in the Annual Register , 
for 1856, with the accompanying remarks, that the “ steam 
gun-boats formed the novel feature of the review.” 

“ The vast naval force reviewed on this occasion, consisted of 
22 steam-ships of the line, of from 60 to 131 guns, 53 frigates 
and corvettes, 140 gun-boats, 4 floating-batteries, and 50 mortar- 
vessels and mortar-boats: the aggregate power of the steam- 
engines, 30,671 horses, aud the number of guns, 3002.” 

Addressing the House, May 8, 1856, after the ratification of 
the Treaty of Peace, Lord Palmerston said, that, “ having begun 
the war with a fleet of comparatively small amount, we were 
enabled, at the end of the war, to present at Spithead the 
spectacle of such a fleet as called forth from the Earl of Derby 
the eulogy, that ‘ no country ever possessed so mighty a naval 
armament.’ We had, at the beginning of the war, a total 
force of 212 ships ; and at the end of the war we have 590.” J 

The greater portion of this increase consisted of gun-boats 
and mortar-vessels; and, with a view to a due appreciation of 


* Hansard , civ. p. 699. f Parliamentary Paper, No. 327,1861. 

t Hansard , cxli. p. 220. 



THE THREE PANICS. 


43 


1856.] 

the systematic manner in which they are destined henceforth to 
pass into oblivion, when successive “ First Lords/’ or Secre¬ 
taries of the Admiralty introduce the Navy Estimates, it is 
necessary that we should fully apprehend the importance which 
competent judges attached, at the time, to this addition to our 
defensive armament. A few weeks later, the First Lord of the 
Admiralty himself, when alluding to the fact of these gun-boats 
having been completed too late to be employed in offensive 
operations against the enemy, remarked :— 

“ Happily, however, the means thus provided for attack can 
now be made equally available as a part of our permanent 
establishment for purposes of defence. The gun-boats and 
floating-batteries, recently constructed for other objects, will 
constitute a valuable and effective armament for protecting our 
shores from assault. The expense incurred in their equipment 
will, therefore, be money not ill-spent. I think it required the 
stern experience of war to teach us the value of such a force \ 
for I do not believe the House of Commons could have been 
induced, in a period of uninterrupted peace, to vote the addi¬ 
tional funds requisite for creating it.”* 

(< We commenced the war,” said Captain Scobell, on the same 
occasion, “ with only large ships; and it was only after two 
years’ experience, that we discovered the gun-boat tribe. If, 
some time ago, we had had that magnificent fleet of gun-boats 
which had recently been reviewed at Spithead, something would 
have been done in the Baltic, which would have been re¬ 
membered for centuries.”! 

Let it be borne in mind, that we were at the close of a war 
in which we had destroyed the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, 
and by the terms of the Treaty of Peace, had prohibited its 
reconstruction. The Russian power, in that remote region, had 
been hitherto invested with a certain mystery, and the fleet of 
Sebastopol had often, in the speeches of our alarmists, been 
made to assume mythical proportions. The Secretary of the 
Navy, in 1852, the year before the Crimean war, when seeking 
to justify his comparatively moderate expenditure for that year, 
appealed to the Russian force in the Black Sea, which, 
according to his statement, comprised 18 line-of-battle ships. 


* Hansard, cxlii.p. 1423. 


t Hansard, cxlii. 1435. 





44 THE THREE PANICS. [PANIC lit. 

12 frigates and corvettes, and 19 smaller vessels.* These ships 
were now lying sunk in the harbour of Sebastopol. 

It was under these circumstances, that in proposing the Navy 
Estimates, on the 18th May, 1857, the First Lord of the 
Admiralty declared, that he could hold out no prospect of being 
able to reduce the expenditure to the level of former years 
previous to the war.f This drew from the vigilant Mr. 
Williams the remark, that they were the most extravagant 
Estimates since the termination of the great French war ; and 
he added that, “ the Estimates for 1852-3, the last year of 
peace before the Russian war, were £2,175,000 less than the 
Estimates for the present year; and yet this was the second 
year of peace. J 

The First Lord of the Admiralty proceeded to justify his in¬ 
creased estimates by a reference to the navy of our ally and 
neighbour :—“ France,” said he, “ had been paying the greatest 
possible attention of late years to the efficiency of its navy ;”§ 
and in order to compare the forces of the two countries, he gave 
the numbers of screw line-of-battle ships and frigates possessed 
by each, omitting the gun-boats and smaller vessels, in which 
we possessed an overwhelming superiority, and which had been 
described the previous year, as “ a valuable and effective arma¬ 
ment for protecting our shores from assault.” They were now 
alluded to only with the disparaging remark, that “ no great 
naval engagement could be maintained in the middle of the 
Atlantic between line-of-battle ships and gun-boats.” The com¬ 
parison was stated as follows :— || 

Line-of-battle ships with screws,built and building, 1857. 

English, 42. | French, 40. 

Frigates with screws, built and building. 

English, 42. | French, 37. 

Lord Clarence Paget, who attracted attention by the ability 
and professional forethought which characterised his remarks on 


* Hansard, cxx. p. 332. f Hansard, cxlv. p. 417, 

X Hansard, cxlv. p. 442. § Hansard, cxlv. 418. 

|| Hansard, cxlv. 426. 



1857 .] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


45 


* 

the comparative value of small and large vessels of war, took 
exception to the above figures, and said that he held in his hand 
a list of French screw line-of-battle ships furnished him by the 
Minister of Marine, and that they amounted altogether to 31; 
and he reminded the “ First Lord” of a great omission in his 
statement,—that the “ nine screw block-ships which he had 
omitted from his enumeration of British ships of the line, were 
among the most effective of our screw line of battle ships. 
They were the only ships which fired a shot in the Baltic, where 
the great line-of-battle ships were of no use whatever, and lay 
off looking on and he added, that, taking into account these 
vessels, our force was nearly double that of France. 

It may be well here to say a word or two respecting the 
origin and purpose of these block-ships, to which repeated allu¬ 
sion will hereafter be made. It was explained by Sir George 
Cockburn in the House, in 1846, that Sir Robert Peel’s Govern¬ 
ment was induced, in consequence of the creation of a steam 
navy by France, to appoint a commission to visit all the ports, 
and see what was necessary to be done for their protection, 
when it was recommended that a certain number of sailing 
line-of-battle ships and frigates should be furnished with screws, 
so as to be able to shift their position, and aid the different 
batteries if they should be attacked.f This was, in fact, our 
first application of the screw propeller to ships of the line, and 
these block-ships were expressly designed for the protection of 
our naval arsenals, and idle vulnerable points of our coast against 
the steam ships of our neighbour. But it will be curious to 
observe, how systematically these vessels are ignored by succes¬ 
sive “ First Lords ” and Secretaries of the Admiralty, in enu¬ 
merating our naval resources, even when estimating our means 
of defence against invasion. The opinions expressed on this 
subject by the same statesmen when in, and when out of office, 
will be foimd to present a singular contrast. 

Lord Clarence Paget also called the First Lord’s attention to 
the small vessels which he had forgotten, and declared that “ he 
believed, that had Sir Charles Napier been supplied with gun¬ 
boats, he might have damaged Cronstadt very considerably. 
All his own experience went to show that line-of-battle ships 


* Hansard^ cxlv, 438. 


t Hansard , lxxxvii. 145G. 



46 THE THKEE PANICS. [PANIC III. 

were not now so important an arm in war as they formerly 
were. Formerly, line-of-battle ships carried heavier guns than 
other ships, but now every corvette, sloop, and gun-boat carried 
heavy guns, and he was convinced that no force of large ships 
could withstand the legion of gun-boats, sloops, and corvettes 
which they saw at Spithead last year,”'* Again recurring to 
the subject he said, “ in his opinion, line-of-battle ships were 
not the instruments by which in future the fate of empires 
would be decided;” and he proceeded to administer comfort to 
the alarmists, by showing how different our situation now was 
to our “case in the time of Napoleon, who had observed that, 
if he could only command the Channel for forty-eight hours, 
he would subjugate this country. He might, however, come to 
our shores at the present day with seventy or eighty ships of 
the line, and yet not be enabled to effect a landing in the face 
of that noble fleet of small vessels which the right-honourable 
baronet had given within the last few years.” He added that, 
“ he had the best authority for saying that there was sitting at 
the present moment in France, an Enquete, or Commission, the 
great object of whose inquiry was to ascertain whether line-of- 
battle ships were or were not the most efficient class of ships 
which could now be employed.” And he advised the First 
Lord to “ rest upon his oars, and take the opportunity of con¬ 
sulting members of the naval service before he proceeded to add 
to the number of those vessels ;”f—advice to which unfortu¬ 
nately, it may be necessary to recur, when the noble lord is 
himself filling the office of official representative of the Admi¬ 
ralty in the House of Cummons. 

In reply to these remarks, Sir Charles 'Wood, the First Lord 
of the Admiralty, observed :—“ The noble lord (Lord C. Paget) 
had sc. id that the block-ships were the most efficient ships in the 
Haltic. It was true that, on account of the light draught of 
water, they and the gun-boats were so in that case, and that they 
would he so in the case of operations on our own coast; but they 
would not be safe vessels to send across the Atlantic—they 
could not keep their place in a cruising squadron. ;f 

In the course of this debate, Sir Charles Napier, referring to 


* Hansard ., cxlv. 438. f Hansard , cxlv. 438-9, 

t Hansard, cxlv. 450. 




THE THREE PANICS. 


47 


1857 .] 

the comparative numbers of line-of-battle ships as enumerated by 
the First Lord, but forgetting the block-ships and floating 
batteries, and overlooking the gim-boats and mortar-vessels 
which had been built at his own suggestion, thus raised the 
cry of alarm 1 “ The First Lord of the Admiralty/’ said he, 
“ had told the House that France had forty ships, and we had 
forty-two only ; France was equal to us, therefore, in ships, and 
superior in the means of manning them. She had an army of 
300,000 or 400,000 men, and we had but 20,000 in Great 
Britain. What would the consequence be if the war were to 
spring up ? Why, there would be an invasion imme¬ 
diately.”* 

A few days after, he thus improved upon this version of the 
official statement :—“ The First Lord of the Admiralty had told 
them the other night—a thing which no First Lord had ever 
told them before—that France, in its naval steam power, was 
equal to ourselves, and that she was able to bring together any 
number of disciplined men to man her fleets quicker than we 
could. We were, therefore, no longer the first naval nation in 
the world.”f A week later the danger is more menacing:— 
“ Let the House look at our condition at the present moment. 
We had no channel fleet. In a few months we should not 
have a line-of-battle ship in England ; and, in case of a sudden 
war with France and Russia, he did not believe the Queen’s 
throne would be worth six months’ purchase.”! 

The course pursued by this remarkable man towards the close 
of his career, and the great extent to which his writings and 
speeches contributed to the creation of the invasion panics, call 
for a few special observations. On his return to the House of 
Commons, after being superseded in the command of the Baltic 
fleet during the Crimean war, he became possessed with a mor¬ 
bid apprehension, amounting almost to a state of monomania, 
respecting the threatening attitude of France, and our insuffi¬ 
cient means of defence. It was not peculiar to his case, for it 
is common to all who share his delusion about the danger of an 
invasion, that he always lost sight of all that was already done, 
and called for something else as the sole means of security. 


* Hansard , cxlv. 434. t Hansard , cxlv. 770. 

| Hansard , cxlv. 9C6. 




48 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[panic III. 

Thus, he demanded more line-of-battle ships, and ignored the 
existence of the new force of small vessels; then he called for 
a channel fleet, whilst he threw contempt on the block-ships; 
when the channel fleet was completed, he declared that the 
crews were in mutiny from mismanagement; when the num¬ 
ber of line-of-battle ships was so great as to extort from him 
expressions of satisfaction, he asked what was the use of ships 
without seamen; when the number of seamen voted for our 
royal navy exceeded that of the entire sea-going population of 
France, he called aloud for a reserve; and when he had been 
triumphant in all his demands, he reverted to the opinion 
which he had been one of the first to proclaim, that the whole 
navy must be reconstructed, for that “ a broadside from the 
modern shell guns would tear holes in the sides of our wooden 
ships through which it would be easy to drive a wheel¬ 
barrow.”* 

Simultaneously with these calls for defensive armaments arose 
incessant cries respecting the enormous increase of the French 
navy. France was always described as in a superior state of 
preparation, and always menacing us with invasion. To those 
who sat near him in the House, and shared in his conversation, 
he would sometimes almost predict the very month when the 
French might be expected on our shores. 

Cherbourg had been always described by him as the chief 
source of our danger, until the great public visit to that port 
dispelled the phantom-ships with which he had been haunted ; 
but still he would expatiate on the facilities which its enormous 
docks and basins offered for embarking an army, declaring on 
one occasion that, “ the troops could walk on board ; cavalry, 
mounted on their horses, could ride on board j and artillery could 
easily be shipped, for thirty sail-of-the dine could lie alongside 
of the wharves alone.”f Notwithstanding that he drew on 
himself occasionally the censure of his brother officers for dis¬ 
paraging our naval strength, and was more than once rebuked 
for encouraging insubordination among the seamen, he still 
persevered; and such is the force of reiteration, that he was at 
last justified in the boast that, although “ he had been called an 


* Hansard, clvi. 1138. 


t Hansard, cl. 1928, 





1857 .] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


49 


alarmist, and laughed at for many years on that account, he 
had lived to see his views adopted.”* 

The question has been asked, whether one whose antecedents 
had exhibited such reckless courage could have been sincere 
when raising the cry of alarm on such vague and shadowy pre¬ 
texts, or whether he was actuated by mere professional motives^ 
It was, however, impossible for those who were in the habit of 
conversing with him to doubt his earnestness ; and the fact of 
his having recommended an arrangement between the English 
and French governments for putting a limit to their naval 
rivalryf is an answer to the suspicion of insincerity. The 
question admits, perhaps, of a different solution. On the 
occasion of his bringing his grievance before Parliament, and 
moving for an inquiry into his conduct in the Baltic, he was 
answered by Sir Maurice Berkeley, one of the Lords of the 
Admiralty, who stated, in his presence, that he had advised the 
removal of Admiral Napier from his command in the Baltic 
because “he thought he was totally and physically unfit,— that 
his nerves were completely gone.”{ This declaration, from 
sailor to sailor, was at the moment thought to partake of some¬ 
what too much professional bluntness; but it probably offers 
the true solution of the above question. And this view is con¬ 
firmed by the fact, that, to the last, on all matters connected 
with his profession, excepting where the question of invasion 
was involved, the remarks and suggestions of the naval veteran 
displayed much sagacity and sound sense. 

Debility of mind, in one or other of its faculties, like physi¬ 
cal decrepitude in some particular organs of the body, is the 
natural and inevitable accompaniment of old age. It has been 
observed, too, that, as in the present case, the very faculty for 
which a man has been most distinguished may, by an excessive 
and continued strain, be the first to give way. This, whilst 
teaching us charity in weighing men’s motives, should also in¬ 
duce us, when taking counsel in important matters, to prefer 
the judgment of those who are in the vigour of their powers, 
and to mistrust quite as much the timidity of the old as the 
rashness of the young. 


* Hansard, clvi. 939. t Hansard , clvi. 989. 

X Hansard, cxli. 102. 







50 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[panic III. 


The year 1857 passed without any revival of the excitement 
out of doors respecting our defences. Scarcely a pamphlet 
issued from the press on the subject of an invasion. Yet, if we 
look at the circumstances of the time, there could hardly be 
imagined a conjuncture when they who believed in the proba¬ 
bility of an attack from the other side of the Channel ought to 
have been more on the alert. 

The commencement of 1858 found us involved in a war with 
China, and in the midst of that formidable rebellion which 
threatened the overthrow of our dominion in India. Just at 
the opening of the parliamentary session of that year, occurred 
the attempt on the Emperor’s life, which led to some in¬ 
temperate manifestations of feeling towards England on the 
part of certain French colonels. This was followed by irritating 
discussions in the press. One of the first measures of the 
session was a proposal to alter our law of “ conspiracy to 
murder,” with the view of meeting the complaints from France. 
This conciliatory step led to the fall of Lord Palmerston’s 
ministry in February, and to the return to power of Lord 
Derby, whose party was at that time considered not so favour¬ 
ably disposed as their predecessors to the French alliance. 
When we consider that, in addition to these personal elements 
of provocation, there was the temptation to wrest from us that 
eastern empire which is regarded, however mistakenly, on the 
Continent, as the great source of our wealth and power, we have 
a combination of motives, and of favourable circumstances, to 
invite an attack such as could never be expected to occur again. 
Well might Mr. Horsman exclaim the following year, that, 
when he looked back to their condition when the mutiny 
broke out in India, he must say it was fortunate that at that 
time it never entered into the mind of any enemy to take ad¬ 
vantage of the position of this country what marvel that so 
intelligent a mind could fail to draw the only rational deduction 
from such a fact! Instead of taking* advantage of our position, 
the Emperor’s Government offered the facilities of a passage 
through France for our Indian reinforcements. 

complete calm prevailed in the public mind, through the 
greater part of the year 1858 ; and the pamphlet literature 


* Hansard, civ. 691. 






THE THREE PANICS' 


51 


1857 , 1858 .] 

scarcely takes note of the topic of a French invasion. The 
House oi Commons was not, however, so entirely quiescent. 
Lord Derby’s Government, on their accession to office, had 
found the Navy Estimates already prepared by Lord Palmer¬ 
ston’s administration, comprising an increase of about 2,000 
men. These Estimates, with slight diminutions in the items 
for building and stores, were adopted and proposed to the House 
by the new First Lord (Sir John Pakington) on the 12th 
April. In the debate which followed, there was the usual 
reference made by Sir Charles Napier, Mr. Bentinck, Mr. 
Drummond, and others, to the formidable preparations going 
on in France, and to the risks of an invasion: when Lord 
Clarence Paget renewed the advice he had before urged, 
saying that, “he believed it to be the opinion of the Navy, 
that it would be wise to pause in the construction of these 
enormous vessels. That opinion was gaining ground in this 
country, and much more was it gaining ground in France. He 
had been lately at Paris, and had conversation with French 
officers on the subject; and, whatever reports the late First 
Lord of the Admiralty (Sir Charles Wood) might have heard 
respecting the French Navy, he could give him positive inform¬ 
ation, that, so far from there being any activity in building 
large ships, they were waiting to see what would be done in 
this country. He was persuaded, and it was the general 
opinion of the naval profession, that line-of-battle ships were 
not destined to - play an important part in future naval wars. 
It was believed that these ships would be superseded in the 
line of battle, and more particularly in attacking forts, by ships 
with one tier of heavy guns, and their sides cased with iron. 
He believed with the hon. and gallant Admiral, the member 
for Southwark (Sir C. Napier), that in ten years three-deckers 
would be unknown, being cut down into single-deck ships ; and, 
holding that opinion, he thought it was a wasteful expenditure 
of the public money, to go on, year by year, constructing that 
class of vessels.”* 

These views were controverted by Lord Palmerston, who 
alluded to the measures which the French Government were 
taking to give France a fleet of screw line-of-battle ships, very 


* Hansard, cxlix. p. 929, 30. 
E 2 





52 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[panic III. 


nearly equal to our own ; he also spoke of Cherbourg as being “ as 
large as many of our dockyards taken together;” and twitted 
Lord Clarence Paget with his credulity, telling him that he was 
“ not sure that opinions, coming from what must be called the rival 
service of other countries were exactly the opinions by which 
the Government of this country ought to guide their conduct.”* 
He deprecated any reduction in the Estimates for building; 
and urged, that, “the most pressing application of the funds 
voted for the naval service, was in providing ships which, when 
once built, will remain, rather than in employing men, who, 
after the year is over, will not add to your strength next year^ 
unless the expense is continued :” j-—a doctrine which, as the 
recent transitions in our navy show, ought to be received with 
great caution. 

These allusions to the preparations of our neighbours met 
with no response out of doors ; and little more was said during 
the session,—with one constant exception :—Sir Charles Napier, 
on the 11th June, addressed a speech to the House, in the form 
of a long question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the 
subject of our national defences, in which, among other terrors 
of the imagination, he pictured a Russian fleet coming up the 
Channel, and exclaimed, amid the laughter of the House, 
“ what would become of the Funds, God only knew.”{ The 
Minister, in reply, complained that he had had to listen to 
three speeches in the session, on the same subject, from the 
same speaker. 

The year 1859 witnessed the apparition of the third panic. 
Towards the close of 1858, and up to the meeting of Parlia¬ 
ment in February, there had been some efforts made by a 
certain portion of the press, to excite apprehensions respecting 
the magnitude of the naval preparations of France; but they 
produced little effect on the public mind. Unlike its pre¬ 
decessors, this panic had its origin chefly in elevated and 
official circles. It was from the first a parliamentary agitation; 
nor was it confined to the Lower House, for, as will be seen, the 
most successful agitators were of the patrician order, who 
played with consummate skill on the most sensitive chord 


* Hansard , cxlix. p. 936. + Hansard , ib. p. 938. 

$ Hansard , cl.p. 1930. 




1859 .] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


53 


in the national heart, by raising the cry of alarm for our 
naval superiority. 

The Queen’s Speech, at the opening of Parliament, announced 
an increase of expenditure for the “ reconstruction of the 
British Navy.” 

On the day previous to that fixed for bringing on the Navy 
Estimates, Sir Charles Napier rose in the House, and said, he 
“wished to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty, whether it 
was true that a French steam aviso, with two French cutters, 
had entered Spithead a few nights ago ; and, after the exchange 
of a few words of courtesy, these vessels had proceeded to 
Stokes Bay in the night, and had taken soundings there ? 
Also, whether he knew that these vessels had more than the 
usual complement of officers ?”* The reply, of course, was 
that they were employed in the performance of their duty, in 
looking after the French fishermen. 

Before we come to the proposal for a sudden and large 
increase of the Navy, on the plea that the Government had 
discovered, in the summer of 1858, that the French were 
making extraordinary progress in their naval armaments, it 
will be well to recur for a moment to the tables in the first 
page. The following is an extract of the number of men, the 
amount of wages in dockyards, and the total expenditure for 
the Navy in England and France, for the year 1858 :— 


England 
France . 


Seamen. 

Wages, etc., 
Dockyards. 

Total 

Expenditure. 


£> 

£ 

55,883 

991,592 

10,029,047 1858 

29,602 

610,954 

5,337,060 1858 


It will be seen, that our total expenditure amounted to nearly 
double that of France; but, owing to the difference in the 
modes of keeping the accounts in the two countries, as already 
explained, this is not a fair mode of comparison. The amount 
expended for wages in dockyards is a better test; and under 
this head, the English expenditure is fifty per cent, more than 
that of France. But the truest standard of comparison is the 
number of seamen, in which we had nearly double the Frencli 
force. If we cast our eye back over the French tables, we 


* Hansard , clii. p. 771. 






54 THE THREE PANICS. [PANIC III. 

shall find that the number of men maintained in 1847, the last 
year of the reign of Louis Philippe, amounted to 32,101), or 
2,567 more than in 1858. The average number of the French 
Navy for the last ten years of Louis Philippe’s reign, was 
31,335, or 1,733 more than in 1858. It will be seen, also, that 
the number of ships in commission, in the latter years of the 
monarchy, exceeded those of 1858. On the other hand, looking- 
back over the British accounts, we shall find no year, previous 
to the Crimean war, in which our seamen approached within 
10,000 of the number voted for 1858. And, more important 
than all, it will be seen that during the whole preceding period 
of twenty-three years, the number of our seamen had never 
been so much in excess of those of France as in 1858. 

The above statement is more than confirmed by an official 
document, which was in the hands of the “First Lord,” when 
he brought forward his Estimates, but which was not laid on 
the table of the House until the following April. It is entitled) 
“Report of a Committee, appointed by the Treasury, to enquire 
into the Navy Estimates, from 1852 to 1858, and into the 
Comparative State of the Navies of England and France.” In 
this document, it is said, that, “ France founds her calculations 
upon a return to her peace establishment of 1852 ; the number 
of her ships in commission for 1859 being 152 against 175 
in the year 1852 ; and the number of seamen afloat being 25,784, 
against 25,016, in 1852.” This gives an increase of 768 men. The 
Report then proceeds to give a corresponding comparison of the 
British Navy :—“ Our position is very different. On the 1st of 
December, 1858, our ships in commission, and their comple¬ 
ments, as compared with 1852, were as follows :— 



Ships. 

Guns. 

Seamen. 

1st December, 1858 

267 

4649 

47,953 

1st December, 1852 

203 

3584 

36,372 

Increase. 

64 

1065 

11,581 


This number is exclusive of a further increase of 3,302 
inarines on shore, including 1,800 employed on shore in China ; 
also of 3,880 seamen, employed in the coast-guard on shore; 
making a total increase, in 1858, as compared with 1852, of 





THE THREE PANICS. 


55 


1859 .] 

18,763 seamen and marines.”* Thus, it appears from our own 
official Report, that whilst France had added to her force, afloat, 
in six years, 768 men, we had added to ours, afloat and on shore, 
18, / 63 ; and that whilst, on the 1st December, 1858, the navy 
ol England numbered 55,135 men, that of France, afloat, con¬ 
tained only 25,784, or considerably less than one-lialf. When 
viewed by the light of these facts, the tone of excitement and 
alarm which pervades the following statement becomes simply 
incomprehensible. 

On the 25th February, 1859, the Navy Estimates were 
brought forward by the First Lord of the Admiralty (Sir John 
Pakington), who asked for an addition of £1,200,000 for ship¬ 
building, and proposed a vote of 62,400 men and boys, being 
the largest number ever maintained in a time of peace. He 
stated, that when he succeeded to office, he “ did not find the 
navy of this country in a proper and adequate state for the 
defence of our coasts, and the protection of our commerce ” ; he 
invited the House to “ aid him in his attempt to restore the 
naval supremacy of England” ; spoke of our having “ fallen to 
the lowest amount ever known in our history—an amount not 
exceeding that of a neighbouring power, (!) without anything 
like the same demand upon its force ”; f he pleaded “ the present 
aspect of public affairs” in justification of his proposal, alleging 
that, “ the Government would not have done their duty to the 
country, if they had not boldly asked for the increase of 
force.” J 

But, not confining himself to these generalities, he stated 
that during the summer the Government had thought it their 
duty to ascertain the state of the French navy. They had 
heard much of the progress made by France in increasing her 
naval armament during the last few years, and having taken 
means for ascertaining the facts, they had found that the line- 
of-battle ships in France were exactly the same in number as 
our own, namely twenty-nine. He calculated that, at the pro¬ 
gress then making, France would, at the end of the year 1859, 
have forty§ line-of-battle ships, and England only thirty-six. 

* Parliamentary Paper. No. 182. 1859, p. 22. 

t Hansard , clii. p. 882-—912. X Hansard , ib» 

§ On the lltli April, 1861, more than two years later, we shall find 
Lord Clarence Paget, then Secretary of the Admiralty, stating in the 




56 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC III. 

When this was brought under his notice in July, he consulted his 
colleagues, and they determined that it “ was a state of things 
which could not be allowed to continue ”; and they resolved 
immediately to withdraw sufficient workmen from other occu¬ 
pations to convert four sailing line-of-battle ships into screws, 
and he now proposed to the House that five additional liners 
should be forthwith converted.* * At the same time, he entered 
into a similar statement respecting frigates, in which he was 
sorry to say that our position was, in comparison, still more 
unsatisfactory; and that in the course of the autumn, he had 
found that whilst we were in possession of thirty-four of these 
vessels, France had forty-six. f 

How, it was not this statement in itself—incomplete and in¬ 
accurate as it will be shown to be—so much as the manner of 
making it, which tended to produce the subsequent alarm and 
panic. A tone of mysterious revelation pervaded the speech, 
the effect of which was heightened by repeated protestations 
of frankness; whilst a portentous significance was imparted to 
the proposed naval augmentations by such assertions as, that “ it 
was inconsistent with our naval power, and with our national 
safety and dignity, that we should allow such a state of things 
to continue,” { and still more by the solemn adjurations 
which followed, invoking the Anglo-French alliance, “ for the 
sake of England and for the sake of the world.” And yet, in 
fact, there was no secret to reveal, for the French Govern¬ 
ment had, in 1857, published to the whole world the programme 
of its future naval constructions for a period of thirteen years, 
founded on the report of a commission appointed in 1855. 
“ The ‘ First Lord ’ and his coadjutors,” says the author of a 
volume containing much valuable information, when commenting 
on this speech, “ had only discovered six months previously 
what was long before patent enough to anyone who had taken 
the trouble to investigate the subject.”§ The House of Com¬ 
mons, however, offered no opposition when the “ First Lord ” 


House that France had only thirty-seven screw line-of-battle ships built 
and building.— Hansard, clxii. 442. 

* Hansard, clii. 882-912. f Hansard, clii. 908. J Hansard, ib. 90G. 

§ “ The Navies of the World by Hans Busk, p. 85. 



THE THREE PANICS. 


57 


1859.] 

0 

finally announced his intention to add twenty-six men-of-war 
to the navy in one year.* 

This speech furnished arguments for the following twelve¬ 
months to those who were employed in exciting the invasion 
panic. The statement which was most frequently quoted, and 
became the favourite text for the alarmists, was that which 
placed England and France on an equality of twenty-nine 
line-of-battle ships each. This was arrived at by a departure 
from the invariable mode of comparison, by which the ships 
built and building are taken into account. On referring back 
to the comparative numbers of these vessels given by Sir Charles 
Wood on the 18th May, 1857, it will be seen, that he states the 
English at forty-two, and the French at forty.fi They are now 
reduced to twenty-nine each, by taking only the numbers actually 
completed at the moment. Had the comparison been made in 
the usual manner, it would have stood as follows, according to 
the Parliamentary paper in the “ First Lord’s ” hands J :— 


Line-of-Battle Ships built and building , December, 1858. 



English. 

French. 

Complete, hull and machinery . 

29 

29 

Receiving engines. 

4 

2 

Converting. 

7 

4 

Building. 

10 

5 

Total. 

50 

40 


Adding the nine coast-guard blockships to the English column, 
it gives fifty-nine, to forty French. 

The total omission of the coast-guard vessels from the “ First 
Lord’s ” numerical statement of the line-of-battle ships and 
frigates possessed by the two countries calls for a few words of 
remark. It has been already shown that nine line-of-battle 
ships have been set apart for the protection of our arse¬ 
nals and harbours. They mount, in the aggregate, about 
600 guns, each vessel being “ armed with 8-inch shell guns 


* Hansard', clii. 942. fi Ante, p. 44. 

X Parliamentary Paper, 182, 1859, p. 15. 






THE THREE TANICS. 


58 


[panic III. 


and 32-pounders, together with two 68-pounders and four 10- 
inch shell guns.”* 

These vessels are assigned to particular stations on the coast, 
though occasionally a paragraph in the newspapers informs us 
that they are mustered as a squadron in the Channel.t But 
wherever they may be, it will be found, on turning over the 
pages of the Navy List, and referring to the “ Majestic,” 
“ Blenheim,” “ Cornwallis,” etc., that these block-ships carry 
their full complement of captain, lieutenants, chaplain, stafl 
surgeon, paymasters, engineers, etc.; and we are told that 
crews of picked seamen, the veterans of the fleet, are provided 
for them. Yet these vessels, with their satellite fleet of gun¬ 
boats, are left altogether out of the numerical comparison of 
the English and French navies ; they are not counted as line-of- 
battle ships, or even thrown into the scale to weigh against our 
neighbour’s paddle frigates ! 

Now, if it could be shown that these ships are worthless, as 
some of our officials would seem to imply, what must be thought 
of the wisdom of those who incur from year to year all the 
current expenses of officering, manning, and arming in the 
most efficient manner, vessels which are afterwards to count for 
nothing! The French form a very different estimate of the 
value of our coast-guard fleet, as the following extract from a 


* Paper read at the Society of Arts, by Mr. E. J. Reed, late of H. M.’s 
Dockyard, Portsmouth, 15th Dec., 1858, p. 15. 

t The Blockships. —Commodore Yelverton’s fleet of coastguard block- 
ships, consisting of the Majestic, 80, Capt. Mends, C. B.; Blenheim, 60, 
Capt. Tatham ; Cornwallis, 60, Capt. Randolph ; Edinburgh, 60, Capt. 
D’Eyncourt; Hawke, 60, Capt. Crispin; Hogue, 60, Capt. Macdonald; 
Russell, 60, Capt. Wodehouse ; Ajax, 60, Capt. Boyd ; and the screw steam- 
frigate Dauntless, 34, Capt. Heath, C.B., after being duly inspected, as pre¬ 
viously announced, by Admiral Eden and Capt. Frederick, two of the 
Lords of the Admiralty, left Portland harbour on Wednesday and Thurs¬ 
day for their respective stations. The Colossus, 80, Capt. Scott, C.B., still 
bearing the flag of Commodore Yelverton, remains at anchor in that har¬ 
bour, but is expected to leave for the Isle of Wight in a day or two. The 
Biter gunboat, tender to the Colossus, is also at Portland.— Times. 

The Channel fleet of blockships were observed at Plymouth at noon on 
Sunday, approaching from the eastward. At five p.m. they were near the 
Eddystone, going down Channel under three foresails, jib, and spanker. 
Wind, north-west. Eleven ships in all ; one a frigate.— Herald. 



1859 .] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


59 


work published under the sanction of their Government will 
show*:— 

“ The service of the coast-guard is placed under the general 
direction of a Commodore of the first class, having the ‘ Pem¬ 
broke ’ for his flag-ship. It includes seventy-three vessels, 
twenty-seven of which are steamers, and forty-six sailing 
vessels. All the coast has been divided into eleven districts, 
each commanded by a captain, having under his orders a cer¬ 
tain number of officers ; — this staff amounts altogether to more 
than 250 officers of all grades. Nine ships-of-the-line and two 
frigates watch the eleven districts. With the exception of one, 
all these vessels are mixed, that is, old sailing vessels, having 
had machinery adapted to them; their armaments and masts 
have been reduced, so as to diminish their draft, and render 
them more manageable. The ships-of-the-line have sixty guns, 
the frigates fifty. Sixteen steam gun-boats and forty-seven 
vessels of light draft have been distributed between the eleven 
districts. It is quite a fleet, destined to a special service, and 
on board of which the manoeuvres and the gun practice take 
place as regularly as on board of other vessels of war. The 
blockships offer to England, for the defence of her harbours 
and dockyards, means of defence which are entirely wanting 
in France.” 

It was by the total omission of this powerful fleet, in the 
enumeration of the forces of the two countries, that the state¬ 
ment of the First Lord startled the country, and furnished the 
“ cry ” to the alarmists—the echo of which has hardly yet died 
away—that France was our equal in line-of-battle ships, and 
was aiming at the supremacy of the seas. 

The comparison of the number of frigates possessed by the 
two countries was hardly less fallacious than that of the ships 
of the line. In stating that England possessed fewer of these 
vessels than France, the faintest possible allusion was made to 
the immense superiority in tonnage and horse-power of the 
majority of our frigates ; whilst the numerical comparison alone 
reached the eye of the general public. The French Navy List 


* “ The Army and Navy Budgets of France and England by M. 
Cucheval Clarigny, p. G7. 




60 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC III. 


contains fifteen vessels classed as paddle-frigates, which were 
built nearly twenty years ago for the transatlantic packet ser¬ 
vice, and on the failure of that enterprise were transferred to 
the Government navy in 1844-5.* The very age of these 
vessels renders it unnecessary to speak of their quality. They 
carry sixteen guns, and, for comparison, they are put on an 
equality with our screw frigates of forty or fifty guns, some of 
which are of a larger tonnage than the line-of-battle ships of 
half a century ago! And whilst these antique tubs are thus 
paraded to the terror of Englishmen, no credit is taken for our 
own splendid packet ships, which would be available, in case of 
emergency, in a few weeks, and some of which, as the Persia, 
for example, are more than double the tonnage, and of far 
greater speed, than these converted “ frigates ” of the French 
navy. 

But the gravest fallacy in the First Lord’s statement has 
still to be noticed. Why was the comparison restricted to ships 
of the line and frigates ? The old nomenclature no longer 
serves for an accurate definition of the strength of ships of 
war. We had at the time fourteen vessels called screw-cor¬ 
vettes, of from 20 to 22 guns each, in our Navy list, far more 
powerful than the above 16-gun frigates, whilst the French had 
only two of this class ; and we had a dozen screw-sloops, of 
from 12 to 17 guns, of which the French had none; but these 
vessels were wholly kept out of view. Had the comparison 
been extended to all steam vessels, we should have shown an 
overwhelming superiority in these smaller ships, which were 
the pride of the iSpithead lie view, and had extorted so many 
eulogies from professional men. The “ First Lord” did not omit 
to offer a passing compliment to this portion of our navy ; but 
he found no place for it in his numerical comparison of the 
forces of the two nations, and it was this numerical comparison 
which was seized upon to promote the panic out of doors. The 


* “France had, about the close of 1844, grafted into their navy twenty 
or twenty-two ships, varying from 1500 to 1700 tons, and about 450 horse 
power. Those ships had been built for Transatlantic packets .”—Evidence 
of Sir Thomas Hastings before Committee on “ Army , Navy , and Ordnance ,” 
1848, Qu. 9797. 





THE THREE PANICS. 


61 


1859 .] 

following figures, taken from the Parliamentary Paper* to which 
attention has been already called, will show what the com¬ 
parison would have been if it had embraced the smaller vessels : 
—England had eighty-two corvettes and sloops, and Prance 
twenty-two : England had 162 gunboats, and France twenty- 
eight. If, after comparing the line-of-battle ships and 
frigates, there had been a comparison of the whole of the other 
steam vessels, the result would have been 380 English and 174 
French. 

The fact of our having built so many more small vessels than 
the French will partly, but not wholly, account for our not 
possessing a larger proportion of screw line-of-battle ships. 
England had, for a long series of years, been spending, at the 
very least, fifty per cent, more on the effective of her navy than 
France, and this ought to be a sufficient answer to the assertion 
that France had been aiming at an equality with us at sea. 
We build ships, construct steam-engines and machinery, and 
obtain coals and other stores twenty or thirty per cent, cheaper 
than our neighbours, and we ought, therefore, to secure a 
proportionately larger return for our outlay.f But these ad¬ 
vantages are more than counterbalanced by the superior manage¬ 
ment of the naval department in France , by which they are enabled 
to avoid the waste of money which is always going on in this 
country upon unnecessary and useless constructions . This will be 
illustrated by a brief examination of the valuable parliamentary 
document to which reference has already been repeatedly 
made. 

It was stated to the House by the First Lord of the Ad¬ 
miralty, that a Confidential Committee had been appointed in 
the winter of 1858, by Lord Derby’s Government, to inquire 
into the comparative state of the navies of England and France. 
The Deport of this Committee, dated January 6th, 1859, and 


* Parliamentary Paper , 182, 1859. 

t The late Mr. Sidney Herbert, who had been three years Secretary to 
the Admiralty, in his evidence before the Select Committee on the Navy, 
in 1848, said, “I should never dream of instituting a comparison between 
our expenditure and that of France; because their expenditure is so 
lavish, and the result for the money spent so very small, that you cannot 
institute a comparison between them.”— Q. 1012(5. 





62 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC III, 


intended, originally,' for the eye of the Ministry only, was laid 
on the table of the House on the 3rd April following. The 
inquiry extended from 1852 to 1858. The reader may be 
reminded that Lord Derby’s Administration was succeeded by 
that of Lord Aberdeen in the autumn of 1852 ; and that on the 
fall of Lord Palmerston’s ministry, in February, 1858, the 
Conservative Chief again returned to power. The Deport 
embraces this interval, and is, therefore, an inquiry instituted 
by one body of politicians, into the management of the navy 
during nearly six years by their opponents ; and it would not 
imply any great ignorance of the inner play of party, to 
suppose that, under such circumstances, we might find some 
hints or disclosures, which would not be met with in a Deport 
of one of the ordinary Commissions appointed by a Government 
to inquire into its own conduct. It is difficult to believe, that, 
if this document had been in the hands of members of Parlia¬ 
ment before the “ First Lord ” had made his statement on the 
25th February, they would have allowed their attention to be 
diverted across the Channel to the acts of a neighbouring 
government, instead of being directed towards their naval 
administration at home. 

Shortly previous to 1852, the English and French Govern¬ 
ments had been brought to the conviction that sailing ships of 
the line could no longer be depended on for purposes of war; 
and after the experience of the Crimean campaign, they ceased 
to be taken into account in a comparison of the forces of the 
two countries. From 1852, to 1858, was, therefore, a period of 
transition, from a sailing to a steam fleet. In 1852, England 
had 73 sailing-vessels of the line ; and France, 45.* In 1859, 
the country was startled with the “ First Lord’s ” statement, 
that France had 29 screw liners, whilst England possessed only 
the same number. How did this arise ? The Deport, after giving 
a mass of most valuable facts and statistics, goes straight to the 
point, and states, that, “the large increase of the French 
steam navy, since 1852, in line-of-battle ships and frigates, has 
been effected mainly by the conversion of sailing ships ” ; that 
“ the number of men required to convert a three-decker into a 
90-gun steam-ship is stated to be five-eighths of the number 


* Parliamentary Paper. No. 182. 1859. p. 18. 




1859 .] 


THE THREE PANTOS. 


63 


required to build a new 90-gun steam-ship. The chief differ¬ 
ence in the cost of conversion arises from the saving in materials. 
The cost of converting a line-of-battle ship of 90 guns, is esti¬ 
mated at £25,000, and the cost of building the same, at 
£105,000 ; but the latter will, of course, be a far more efficient 
and durable vessel ” ; that, “ the process of conversion, on the 
other hand, is speedy as compared with that of building. The 
present seems a state of transition, as regards naval architecture, 
inducing the French Government to suspend the laying down 
of new ships of the line altogether, and it is more especially so 
with respect to artillery* The Report states, that, “ no line- 
of-battle ship has been laid down since 1855, in France, and there has 
not been a single three-decker on the stocks since that year ” ; and 
that of the forty-five sailing vessels, which France possessed in 
1852, and of which ten remained in 1858, there were two only 
which were not “ too old to be converted. 5 ’! 

In the mean time, England had pursued the double process 
of building new, and converting old ships of the line. Between 
1852, and 1858, we launched twenty-three liners. “Of the 
line-of-battle ships now building in the English dockyards,” 
says the Report, “ one was laid down in 1855, two in 1856, one 
in 1857, and four in 1858.” { At the time when these last 
four were laid down, we had thirty-five sailing-ships of the line 
afloat, of which nineteen are reported by the Surveyor of the 
Navy to be convertible into screw liners or frigates ; he states, 
also, that we possessed seventy sailing frigates, of which twenty- 
seven were convertible^ 

Now, inasmuch as the fitting of steam-engines into existing 
sailing-ships is a much cheaper and more expeditious process 
than the building of new ones, and leaving sailing vessels to 
rot in ordinary, it was only natural that the conversion of a 
sailing into a steam fleet should proceed more rapidly in the 
French than in the English dockyards. The obvious remedy was 
to follow the thrifty example of our neighbours ; and this was 
the recommendation of the Report, which, in language sufficiently 
intelligible, contrived, at the same time, to convey a censure on 
the conduct of the previous administration: — “We, therefore, 
venture to suggest, for your Lordships’ consideration, whether, 


* Parliamentary Paper, p. 21. t Ibid, p. 19. % Ibid, p. 19. § Ibid, p. 20, 




64 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC III. 


if the force in the dockyards were to he used next year in the 
conversion of ships of the line and frigates, as far as the 
available dock accommodation will admit, the most useful 
results might not be attained at a comparatively small expen¬ 
diture.”* 

We have seen, that, in conformity with this Report, the “ First 
Lord” announced to the House his intention to convert nine 
sailing line-of-battle ships into screw steamers, and he reserved 
other foui* for the next year. If this had been done, as it 
should have been, at the time when the French were similarly 
employed, and if the nine Coast-guard vessels had been taken 
into account, where would have been the pretext for a panic ? 
But, it is hardly reasonable to hold the French Government 
responsible for a state of things which arose out of the mal¬ 
administration of our own affairs, and which the Minister of 
Marine could have no power of remedying, except by lowering 
his management to the level of that of our Admiralty. 

In order to illustrate the foregoing statement, the following 
figures are extracted from this Report. 

As it has been the custom to estimate the strength of a navy 
by the number of its line-of-battle ships, it will be well, in the 
first place, to give the particulars of this class of vessels. 

Comparative Numbers of English and French Line-of-battle Ships , 

in the Years 1852 and 1858.t 
1852. 

Sailing Vessels .... 

Steam Vessels, afloat and building 

Block Ships .... 

Total 

Sailing Vessels .... 

Steam Vessels, afloat and building 

Total . 


English. 
. 73 
. 17 
. 4 


, 94 

French. 

45 

6 


51 


* Parliamentary Paper , 182, 1859, p. 21. 
t Ibid, pp. 17—19. 







1859.] 


1859.] THE THREE PANICS. 

65 

1858. 


English. 

Sailing Yessels . 

• • • 

. 35 

Steamers Complete 

29) 


,, Receiving Engines, 

4 ( 

. 50 

,, Building 

10 ( * 

„ Converting . 

7] 


Block Ships 

• • • 

. 9 

Total 

• • • 

. 94 



French. 

Sailing Yessels . 

• • • 

. 10 

Steamers Complete 

29 ) 


,, Receiving Engines, 

2 / 

. 40 

„ Building 

5f * 

„ Converting. 

4) 


Total 

• • • 

. 50 

It will be seen, by comparison, that, instead of 

our having 


lost ground in ships of the line in six years, the total number 
of French vessels, sailing and steam, bore a smaller proportion 
by one to the English, in 1858, than in 1852. As an illustra¬ 
tion of the economical example which the Minister of Marine 
had given to our Admiralty, by the conversion of sailing-ships 
into steamers, it will be observed, that whilst France had reduced 
the number of her sailing vessels from forty-five to ten, or 
more than three-fourths, England had only diminished hers 
from seventy-three to thirty-five, or little more than one-half. 

It should be always borne in view, that we are not discussing 
the process of creating a navy, but of substituting one kind of 
ship for another. The following list of the numbers of line-of- 
battle ships possessed by the two countries at various epochs is 
interesting, as showing the number of sailing vessels formerly 
maintained by France. It aj3pears that the French force, as 
measured by this class of vessels, has generally been equal to 
rather more than the half of our own; and this seems to have 
been tacitly accepted by the two countries as a fair propor¬ 
tion for nearly a century, with the exception of that period of 




THE THREE PANICS. 


66 


[panic 111. 


humiliation for France, which immediately succeeded the resto¬ 
ration of the Bourbons. 


Numbers of Line-of-Battle Ships in the English and French Navies 

at the following Dates :— 


British. French. 

1778 .... 126 68 

1794 .... 145 77 

1830 .... 106 53 

1840 .... 89 44 

1850 .... 86 45 

1858 .... 94 50 

The totals of the steamers of all sizes in the two navies were 
as follows in the years 1852 and 1858 :— 

1852 British Steamers of all sizes . 176 


1858 „ „ . 464 


British Increase .... 288 

1852 French Steamers of all sizes . 122 

1858 „ „ . 264 


French Increase . . .142 

Thus, whilst in six years, the French added 142 steamers of 
all kinds to their navy, we added more than double the number 
to ours. 

The following are the totals of both steamers and sailing 
vessels of all sizes in the two navies at the same dates :— 

1852 British Steamers of all sizes . 176 

„ „ Sailing vessels, ditto . 299 

Total . . . .475 

1858 British Steamers of all sizes . 464 

„ „ Sailing vessels, ditto . 296 

Total .... 760 

British Increase . . 285 










1859.] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


67 


1852 French Steamers of all sizes 
„ „ Sailing vessels, ditto 

. 122 

. 258 

Total . 

. 380 

■/ 

1858 French Steamers of all sizes 
„ „ Sailing vessels, ditto 

. 264 
. 144 

Total . 

French Increase . 

. 408 
. 28 


It is very instructive to observe tbe above numbers of sailing 
vessels in the two countries at both periods. In 1852, England 
possessed 299 of these vessels, which were reduced to 296 in 
1858, being a diminution of three only: France possessed 
258 sailing vessels in 1852, which were reduced to 144 in 
1858, being a diminution of 114. These figures show that 
whilst France was engaged in converting her sailing vessels 
into steamers, England continued the processes of building and 
converting; the consequence was that we had as many sailing 
vessels within 3 in 1858, as in 1852; and whilst France had 
increased the total number of her vessels, of all kinds, by 28 
only, England had augmented hers by 285. That these 
figures* prove an enormous amount of misapplied capital and 
labour in our dockyards, and place us, in point of management, 
in humiliating contrast with our neighbour, there can be no 
doubt. 

Sir Charles Wood, the preceding “First Lord/’ felt probably 
that some of Sir John Pakington’s statements glanced obliquely 
upon him, and on the 6th April, he entered at length upon a 
vindication of his management. It is interesting to find him, 
in opposition, not only gathering up all the elements of our 
naval strength, including block-ships and gun-boats, which had 
been overlooked, when the Estimates were brought forward in 
1857, but disputing the pretensions of our neighbours, who 
had received such flattering eulogies on that occasion. “ I 
would, however,” said he,t “remind the House that they must 


* They have been wholly taken from the Report. Parliamentary Paper. 
No. 182. 1859. t Hansard, cliii. p. 1462. 

F 2 






68 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC III. 

not suppose that all the French ships are as fine sea-going 
ships as our new line-of-battle ships. There is one of them, I 
know, the Montebello, which has only 140 horse-power ; while 
the weakest of our block-ships* has 200 horse-power. I say, 
that for the defence of our coasts, at least, these block-ships are 
good and efficient, and as available for that service, as many of 
the French ships of the line are for attack. In considering our 
means of defence, I must, however, he allowed to take into 
account the numerous vessels of a smaller class, which we 
possessed, and which, as the noble member for Sandwich (Lord 
Clarence Paget) said, no line-of-battle ships could resist.” 

Here was an excellent case established against any addi¬ 
tional armaments : hut as the speaker gave a ready approval 
to the proposed increase of the Estimates, his argument was 
only calculated to inspire the public mind with still greater 
mistrust. 

The better to understand the state of feeling in 1859, it is 
necessary to recur to the events which were then passing 
around us. Hostilities had commenced between France and 
Austria. The operations of the French army in Italy were 
watched with no friendly eye by the upper and conservative 
classes of this country, whose sympathies were generally on the 
side of Austria. On the contrary, with the mass of the people, 
the government of Yienna was supremely unpopular, whilst 
a universal enthusiasm prevailed in favour of Italian inde¬ 
pendence. And although, undoubtedly, some mistrust was 


* There is something almost dramatic in the transformation of opinion 
which is sometimes produced by the removal from the official to the 
opposition benches, and vice versa. On the 18th May, 1857, Sir Charles 
Wood, the First Lord, in bringing forward the Navy Estimates, stated that 
France had forty and England forty-two screw-liners. On the 12th April, 
1858, Sir John Pakington, who had just succeeded to the office of First 
Lord, alluding to this statement of his predecessor, said—“ it was not fair 
to exclude the block-ships, as you must do when you say that you have 
only two line-of-battle ships more than the French.” On the 25th 
February, 1859, Sir John Pakington, in moving his Navy Estimates, stated 
that France had twenty-nine, and England had twenty-nine screw line-of- 
battle ships, totally omitting the block-ships. On the 6th April following^ 
Sir Charles Wood, then in opposition, reminded the First Lord of this 
omission, and contended that the block-ships were good and efficient for 
the defence of the coast. 



THE THREE PANICS. 


69 


1859 .] 

entertained towards the absolute Buler of France, in his new 
character of champion of the nationalities, still, for the sake of 
Italy, the popular sympathy followed the march of the French 
armies. At the same time, a suspicion arose (the despatches of 
Lord Malmesbury had not been published) that our Conser¬ 
vative government were pledging us to the side of the 
Austrians ; and hence was witnessed the strange spectacle, for 
England, of public meetings called to proclaim the principle of 
non-intervention,—which, truly interpreted, meant a protest 
against the interference of our Government on the wrong 
side. 

This explanation may help to account for the fact, that the 
loudest notes of alarm and hostility against France resounded 
from that usually serene and impassive body, the House of 
Lords. They did not avowedly espouse or defend the cause of 
Austria ; public opinion was too strong in the opposite 
direction. But to proclaim the danger of an invasion of 
England, and thus rouse the hostile passions of the country 
against the French Emperor, operated, to some extent, as a 
diversion in favour of his antagonist; and he is said, by those 
who were in a position to be well-informed on the subject, to have 
been so far influenced by the hostile attitude manifested in high 
quarters in this country, that it operated, among other causes? 
disadvantageously to the Italian cause, in bringing the cam¬ 
paign to a precipitate close. The most inveterate alarmist 
might have rested satisfied, that, as the Emperor had allowed us 
to escape two years before, when we were involved in our 
Indian difficulty, he would not seek a rupture just at the 
moment when his own hands were so fully occupied in Italy. 
He knew that a war with England meant a campaign on the 
Bhine, as well as the Mincio, with British subsidies to Austria 
and Germany, and a naval war extending to every sea. Yet 
this was the fate to which, in the eyes of panic-struck peers, he 
was rushing, impelled—in the absence of every rational motive 
—by his destiny ! 

On the first of July, the Volunteer Corps and the Navy 
Estimates became the subjects of discussion in the Upper House. 
So much did the debate turn upon the question of invasion, that 
at the first glance, it might be concluded we were not only at 
war with our next neighbour, but at the very crisis of a long 


70 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC III. 


struggle. Lord Ellenborougli called for seventy line-of-battle 
ships, but declared that no increase of the Navy could, under 
present circumstances, protect us against invasion; that, for 
“ six months in the year, an enemy may land 60,000 to 80,000 
men on any beach on the south coast of England ” ; and with 
his wonted proneness to strategy, he called for forts to protect 
“ all the ports, and all the roads in which it would be possible 
for an enemy to place a fleet, with any degree of security ; and 
where he might form tetes-de-pont that would assist his future 
operations ” ; and he particularly pointed to Portland, “ that 
port which the late French ambassador went down to recon¬ 
noitre, and which he took the trouble of visiting at the end of 
last summer in order to see the particular advantages it 
possessed. He trusted that whenever that respectable gentle¬ 
man went to that port again, he would find it in a better 
position than when he saw it last.”* 

Lord Howden, who said “ he resided in France, and his 
social relations were chiefly in that country,” declared that the 
entire population of that empire were eager for the invasion of 
England, regardless of the consequences:— 

“ He did not believe that the idea of conquering this country 
had ever entered into the head of any sane Frenchman, any 
more than any sane Englishman had ever entertained the 
notion that we should allow ourselves to be conquered by 
France. He felt assured that no Frenchman had ever dreamt 
of taking possession of this island; but he felt almost equally 
certain that every Frenchman living dreamt both by day and 
by night of humiliating this country, and robbing her of the 
position which she alone maintained among the nations of 
Europe, that of possessing an inviolate soil. Thousands of per¬ 
sons in England scouted the very thought of an invasion. They 
asked, ‘ What is the use of it ? — it could have no permanent 
result.* The people of France were aware that it could not; 
but then they did not adopt the same mode of reasoning on the 
subject. A forlorn hope might enter some miserable village, 
inhabited by six fishermen and a ploughboy; a bulletin might be 
signed on British soil, proclaiming the glorious triumph of French 
arms ; the French eagles might stream from every steeple from 


* Hansard, cliv. 532. 



1859.] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


r+< i 

tl 

Acton to Ealing, and from Ealing to Harrow—the very pros¬ 
pect was enough to throw every Frenchman into a transport of 
joy, and that, too, although he might be perfectly aware that 
not a single one of his countrymen would return home to tell 
the tale.” He declared that a war against England would 
unite in one body, Republicans, Imperialists, Orleanists, and 
Legitimists, and in conclusion said:—“ Such a war was the 
only one which would ever be universally popular in France, 
and, however reckless the attempt to invade England might be 
—however devoid of all rational hope of success—there was 
not a single widow in France who would not give her last son } 
or a single beggar who would not give his last penny to carry 
out such a project.”* * Lord Brougham controverted this view, 
and said he believed, on the contrary, that no act of the French 
Government could excite greater indignation among all classes 
of the French people than a quarrel with England. But he, 
too, called for increased preparations by land and sea.f Lord 
Hardwicke, with natural professional gallantry, would not listen 
to the plan of land defences, or tolerate the idea of an invasion ; 
he was for carrying the war to the enemy’s coasts :—“ He held 
that it was the duty of the Government to render the navy of 
England sufficiently powerful not only to maintain the British 
Channel as the British Channel, but to enable us to insist that 
the boundaries of this country in that direction should be the 
low-water mark on the French shore.” J 

But the great speech of the session on this subject, and which 
for a fortnight fluttered the fashionable world and agitated the 
clubs, has yet to be noticed. On the 5th July, Lord Lyndhurst 
brought forward the subject of the national defences. He began 
his argument by repeating the statement of the First Lord of 
the Admiralty, that “ France exceeded us the year before in a 
small proportion in line-of-battle ships, but she exceeded us in 
an enormous proportion in steam frigates.” Without one word 
of reference to the coast-guard fleet or floating batteries, or the 
small vessels, in which our superiority could be reckoned by 
hundreds, and which, as the naval authorities only two years 
before declared, rendered a landing on our shores impossible, or 
the scores of large ocean steamers in the employ of private 


* Hansard, cliv. 517. t Hansard., ib., 524. 

* X Hansard , ib., 528. 




72 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC III. 

companies, lie brings the two “ fleets ” into combat in the 
Channel, and argues, in case of defeat, that we have no reserve 
to prevent an immense military force from being landed on our 
shores. The “ fleets ” are brought also into collision in the 
Mediterranean and elsewhere; but no allusion is made to the 
existence of any other than ships-of-the-line and frigates. He 
cites Lord Palmerston’s “ very emphatic words, that steam has 
converted the Channel into a river, and thrown a bridge across 
it” ; and he argues that “ a large army may within a few hours 
—in the course of a single night—be landed on any part of our 
shores.” “ I know,” said he, “ from information which I have 
received, and the accuracy of which I do not doubt, that the 
French are at the present moment building steamers for the 
purpose of transporting troops, each of which is constructed to 
carry 2,500 men, with all the necessary stores. This, therefore, 
is the description of force which you must prepare yourselves 
to meet.” He called for an establishment of 100,000 troops 
and embodied militia, and the same number of disembodied and 
trained militia, “ in order to be prepared for any emergency 
which may arise.” He avowed that he felt something like a 
sentiment of humiliation in going through these details. “ I 
recollect,” said he, “ the day when every part of the opposite 
coast was blockaded by an English fleet. I remember the vic¬ 
tory of Camperdown, and that of St. Vincent, won by Sir John 
Jervis; I do not forget the great victory of the Nile, nor, last 
of all, that triumphant fight at Trafalgar, which almost annihi¬ 
lated the navies of France and Spain. I contrast the position 
which we occupied at that period with that which we now hold. 
I recollect the expulsion of the French from Egypt; the 
achievement of victory after victory in Spain; the British army 
established in the south of France; and, last of all, that great 
victory by which that war -was terminated.” Interspersed with 
these irritating reminiscences were such remarks, as—“ I will 
not consent to live in dependence on the friendship or forbear¬ 
ance of any country ;” “ are we to sit supine on our own shores, 
and not prepare the means necessary in case of war to resist 
that power ?”*—remarks which, considering our overwhelming 
naval superiority at the time, can be compared only to the act 
of brandishing a weapon in the face of a friendty neighbour. 


Hansard , cliv. 617—27. 







1859 .] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


73 


Fully to comprehend the scope and temper of these utterances, 
which were received by the assembled peers with a rapturous 
welcome, it is necessary to consider for a moment the circum¬ 
stances under which the speech was delivered. The speaker 
represented more than any other peer the legal and constitu¬ 
tional character of the Upper House. His judicial mind and 
great age tended naturally to impart a tone of moderation and 
caution to his observations, and he was commenting on the 
policy of a nation with whom we were at peace, and from 
whose Sovereign our Government had received numerous proofs 
of friendship. Nor must the circumstances in which the two 
countries were at the moment placed be overlooked. France 
had hardly emerged from a war for an object in which the 
British nation had long felt the deepest sympathy, and for 
the outbreak of which the statesmen of both our political 
parties held Austria responsible, and she had incurred an ex¬ 
haustive sacrifice of life and treasure which contributed, with 
other considerations, to bring the struggle to an early and un¬ 
expected close. At the same time, our own naval preparations 
were on a scale of unparalleled magnitude for a time of peace. 
Taking the average of the years 1858-9, it will be seen, on 
reference to the accounts in the first page, that the number of 
our seamen was more than double that of the French navy—a 
disproportion quite unexampled during the last thirty years. 
It was under these circumstances, and when not an act or word 
on the part of the French Government indicated a hostile dis¬ 
position, that the foremost man in the highest assembly of 
Englishmen delivered, amidst enthusiastic plaudits, the speech 
of which the above is a brief outline. If England had been a 
weak country, threatened with invasion by a powerful enemy, 
nothing could have been more calculated to stir the patriotism 
of its inhabitants than to remind them of the exploits of their 
fathers ; but to declaim of Trafalgar and the Nile, to taunt with 
their reverses a brave people who were no longer our enemies 
but our friends, was more derogatory to ourselves than to the 
object of those taunts. It must be acknowledged, that the dig¬ 
nified calmness with which such gratuitous insults as these 
have for many years been borne, bespeaks the possession of a 
large share of self-command on the part of our neighbours. 

From the remarks which fell from other peers, it might have 



74 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC III. 

been supposed that England was at the time completely dis¬ 
armed. Forgetting our 464 steamers, our 62,400 seamen, the 
Militia Act of 1852, and the “ very little short of 200,000 
fighting men which, in the event of war, we could put into the 
field/’* Lord Ellenborough exclaimed—“My Lords, it is not 
safe for this country to remain unarmed in the midst of armed 
nations. When, of two neighbouring nations who have ever 
been rivals, and have often been engaged in desperate hostilities 
against each other, one determines to apply all her energies to 
making money, and the other to making preparations for war, 
it is obvious enough with which of the two nations all the 
money must ultimately remain. ”f 

And Lord Stratford de Pedciiffe, after expressing his grati¬ 
tude to Lord Lyndhurst “ for calling attention to this most im¬ 
portant and solemn question at so anxious a time as the 
present,” and reminding his hearers, that, “ although the sup¬ 
plies necessary for taking the precautionary measures now sug¬ 
gested could not originate in that House, that, nevertheless, 
those measures had first been brought under consideration 
there,” proceeded to remark on the unwillingness of free coun¬ 
tries to prepare for defence in anticipation of war, and declared 
“ that it was a just cause of shame and an intolerable humilia¬ 
tion, that a great empire like ours should appear, though it 
were only for one hour, to exist by sufferance, and at the good 
pleasure of a forbearing neighbour. ”J 

The Government was on this occasion represented by Lord 
Granville, (the administration of Lord Derby having in the 
previous month been displaced by that of Lord Palmerston) 
who, in allusion to the tone of Lord Lyndhurst’s speech, said :— 
“ If a feeling of hostility does exist, as he says it does, not on 
the part of the Emperor Napoleon, but on the part of the 
French people, I doubt that his speech will tend to allay it. 
When he points out in the most marked way, the defenceless 
character of our shores — when at the same time he boasts of 
our former victories, and when he makes something like insinu¬ 
ating and sneering allusions both to the government and people 
of France—I am afraid that, coming from such lips as his, such 


* Lord Palmerston, Aug. 5, 1859, Hansard, civ. 1079. 
t Hansard, cliv. 645. J Hansard, ib., 627—8. 



1859 .] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


75 

language is not well calculated to promote the object of un¬ 
broken friendly alliance.” The Duke of Somerset, who had 
succeeded Sir John Pakington as First Lord of the Admiralty, 
was still more plain-spoken on this point: “ He greatly 

regretted the exciting language which their lordships had just 
heard. If such language were persevered in, it would be 
necessary to have not only a peace, but a war establishment. 
There was no peace whatever in the language of the noble and 
learned lord (Lord Lyndhurst). That language was calculated 
to excite the passions of England and France; and he thought 
it most unwise to talk as the noble and learned lord had done 
of two great nations.” 

It was not the speeches of individuals, however high their 
rank or eminent their ability, but the constant augmentation of 
our armaments, by successive Governments, which mainly 
tended to excite feelings of alarm and resentment towards France. 

In this policy, the administration which had now returned to 
power will be found to surpass all preceding Governments. 

Parliament had reassembled, after the dissolution by Lord 
Derby’s Government, on the 31st May, 1859; and in the 
following month Lord Palmerston’s Ministry resumed office, 
Just previous to the dissolution, Lord Clarence Paget had 
brought forward a motion on the Dockyard Expenditure, when 
he adduced a very elaborate series of figures and estimates to 
prove, that during the past eleven years there had been an 
unnecessary expenditure, “ a deficit or a discrepancy,” of 
£5,000,000 of money in the Government yards, or equal to 
twenty-two line-of-battle ships, with all complete, ready for 
sea ; he spoke of an extravagance in the ship-building depart¬ 
ment, which “ really appalled himsaid he could account for 
the reason why we had so little to show for such an enormous 
expenditure, and that, if his motion were accepted, “ such 
statements as that of Sir John Pakington which had pro¬ 
duced such a painful sensation out of doors, namely, that 
after laying out £20,000,000 on a steam navy simply for the 
construction of the ships, and exclusive of the costs of their 
engines and machinery, we were, both in numbers and quality, 
inferior to the French in line-of-battle ships, would be im¬ 
possible.” The following graphic description of the manner in 
which our dockyard artificers amuse themselves might help to 


76 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC III. 

account for some superiority in the French navy, without 
implying any great merit on the part of our neighbour :— 

“ He did not think the House had the smallest notion of 
what had been going on in our dockyards in the way of tinkering 
vessels, amputating them, and performing all sorts of surgical 
operations upon them. They had their heads cut off, they had 
their tails cut off, they were sawn asunder, they were maltreated 
in every possible way. Ships built ten years ago by Sir William 
Symonds were not in fashion at the present day, and nobody 
could blame the Admiralty for lengthening and altering them, 
because, as originally constructed, they were not now fit to go 
to sea ; but he wished to speak of the reckless alteration of new 
ships. Their name was legion ; almost every ship was altered; 
there was scarcely one that had not undergone some frightful 
operation some time or other.” 

He characterised Sir John Pakington’s speech on moving the 
Navy Estimates, as being “ the truth and nothing but the truth, 
but not the whole truth’’ ; and he proceeded to say “ that it was 
a very able statement to make out his case, first to attack the 
right hon. gentleman who preceded him in office, and secondly, 
to induce the House to grant a large sum of money to increase 
our line-of-battle ships; but he must also say that it tended to 
create an alarm, which he for one did not share. The First 
Lord, for example, did not tell the House of an admirable class 
of vessels, in which we possessed an immense superiority over the 
French — a superiority measured according to the right hon. 
Member for Halifax (Sir Charles Wood) by 200 excellent small 
ships. He was not going to enter into a discussion upon the 
comparative merits of line-of-battle ships and gun-boats. But 
if he had a large sum of money to lay out he would prefer, not 
gun-boats exclusively, but certainly small vessels.”* 

In the course of the discussion, Mr. Lindsay said: “ He 
believed that £7,000,000, properly applied, would go as far as 
£10,000,000 now went in building our ships of war, and in our 
naval expenditure generally.”fi And on a previous occasion it 
had been stated by Mr. Bentinck that, “ He had asked many of 
the most eminent owners of private yards in the country the 
question: 4 Supposing you were to carry on your yards upon 


* Hansard, cliii. 39—48. 


t Hansard cliii. 72. 





1859 ] 


77 


THE THREE PANICS. 

the system on which Her Majesty’s dockyards are conducted, 
what would be the result ?’ and the invariable answer had been, 
If we were to approach that system, with the Bank of England 
at our back, we should be ruined in six months.”* 

On the 8th July, Lord Clarence Paget, having in the mean 
time accepted the post of Secretary of the Admiralty, intro¬ 
duced the Navy Estimates to the House in a long speech. The 
independent irresponsible critic had been suddenly metamor¬ 
phosed into the Government Official. The sound precepts 
recently uttered by the naval reformer were brought so abruptly 
to the test of practice that the transformation had almost a 
touch of romance in it. It was as though Haroun Alraschid 
had seized a malcontent in his audience-chamber, thrown the 
pelisse of Grand Yizir over his shoulders, and said : — “ Thou 
sayest well,—Do as thou sayest.” As the Secretary had only 
been a few days in the department, and as the Estimates were, 
with some additions, those of his predecessor, which had been 
virtually passed, his speech may be fairly exempted from 
criticism. It has all the candour and hopefulness which generally 
characterise the first utterances of Officials before they have 
occasion to apply to the House for money. He put in the fore¬ 
ground the coast-guard fleet which had been entirely ignored by 
his predecessor, declaring that “ he could not speak too highly 
of those block-ships.” He expatiated also upon our resources 
in merchant-steamers aud private dockyards : — 

“ Why, Sir, we have got, I take it, from a return that was 
moved for a few days ago, by my hon. friend the Member for 
Penryn (Mr. T. G. Baring), 159 steam vessels over 1,000 tons 
each, and 72 between 1,000 and 700 tons each, together 231 
merchant steam vessels, most of which might be quickly 
adapted to carry Armstrong guns, and thus prove a most valu¬ 
able addition to the defences of the country. There is yet 
another source from which we can very largely increase our 
navy at any moment with regard to ships, and that is our com¬ 
mercial yards. Here is another return, which I think will be 
interesting to the Committee, according to which there are, in 
addition to the shipwrights employed in the royal dockyards, 
about 10,000 shipwrights in Great Britain. Now, it is an old 


* Hansard, cliii. G2. 






78 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[panic hi. 

shipwright’s maxim, that 1,000 shipwrights can build eight 
men-of-war of 1,000 tons each in twelve months ; consequently, 
10,000, which is the number that we have in the commercial 
yards of this country, could build 80 corvettes of 1,000 tons 
each in twelve months, or at the rate of between six and seven 
per month.”* 

He stated that the number of men then actually employed in 
the Government dockyards was 17,690, as against 14,128 in 
the beginning of March; and he added :— 

“ During the past year, we have built in tonnage of line-of- 
battle ships, 10,604 tons; in frigates, 5,851 tons ; in corvettes, 
1,193 tons ; and in sloops and gun vessels 1,511 tons ; making 
the total tonnage built, up to the end of the last financial year, 
19,159. 

* * * * 

During the present year, supposing that our scheme is carried 
out, and that no unforeseen contingency should arise, we shall 
build of line-of-battle ships, 19,606 tons ; of frigates, 15,897 
tons ; of corvettes, 5,130 ; and of sloops and gun-vessels, 5,651 
tons ; making a total of 46,284 tons which will be built this 
year, against, 19,159 tons last year.”f 

It may be concluded, from his reiterated declaration in favour 
of small vessels, that he administered with much repugnance to 
this enormous outlay on line-of-battle ships ; but he must not 
be held responsible for the engagements of his predecessor. 

Hitherto, the invasion agitation had been confined almost 
exclusively to the Peers. With the exception of the indefati¬ 
gable Sir Charles Napier, very little had been said on the sub¬ 
ject in the House of Commons since the startling speech on the 
introduction of the navy estimates. Indeed, the gallant 
Admiral could not help lamenting the want of that enthusiasm 
which had characterised the debates in the Upper House : “ He 
had derived great satisfaction from the speeches delivered in 
another place by Lord Lyndhurst, Lord Hardwicke, and Lord 
Ellenborough, with every word of which he perfectly agreed, 
and he only wished they could hear such speeches in the House 
of Commons.”! His wish was speedily to be gratified. But 
before coming to the occasion, it may be well to note a straw in 


* Hansard, cliv. 905. + Hansard , ib. 914. % Hansard, ib. 993. 





1859 .] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


79 


the wind. On the 15th July, Lord William Graham, addressing 
himself to the Foreign Minister, said, “ he wished to ask the 
question of which he had given notice, whether the Government 
had received any information respecting the formation of a large 
channel Fleet at Brest, with gun-boats and means for em¬ 
barking and disembarking troops, and, if so, whether they had 
demanded any explanations from the French Government 
on the subject.”* To which Lord John Bussell replied, 
that our Consul at Brest had informed him, that “there were 
no extraordinary preparations going on either at Cherbourg or 
Brest.” 

That which, without offence, may be [called the great panic 
speech of the session—for no other epithet will so properly 
describe it—has now to be noticed. On the 29th July, 1859, 
Mr. ITorsman brought forward his motion for raising money by 
loan “ for completing the necessary works of national defence 
projected, or already in progress.” The most desponding and 
terror-stricken invasion theory was put forth on this occasion. 
The motion assumed that all other modes of defence, whether 
by fleets, armies, militia, or volunteers, were insufficient, and 
proposed to borrow a sum of money which ultimately took the 
formidable proportions of from ten to twelve millions, to be ex¬ 
pended on fortifications. The speech delivered on the occasion, 
unexceptionable as a rhetorical performance, was absolutely 
destitute of one fact or figure to prove the danger against which 
we were called upon to arm. There were vague assertions of 
“ enormous preparations” and “ increasing armaments,” on the 
part of France, and she was described in her naval preparations 
to have “ got ahead of us, and was making every effort to pre¬ 
serve that start,” whilst, on our part, there was with the same 
sweeping vagueness, said to be a “ want of all plan or prepara¬ 
tion for defence on this side of the channel” : but, from the 
first word to the last, the speech did not contain one syllable 
respecting the comparative strength of the English and French 
navies. France might at the time have had 100,000 seamen, 
and 100 ships of the line in the channel, judging from the tone 
of the speaker, and for any information which he imparted to 
the contrary. Let it not, however, be thought, after this 


* Hansard , cliv. 1293. 




80 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC III. 

description, that too much space is devoted to the following 
extracts; for although the motion did not succeed at the 
moment, it required only a twelvemonth, as we shall see, to 
make the speaker the triumphant master of the situation. The 
country has, in accordance with his views, been committed to a 
plan of expenditure more likely to reach twenty millions than 
ten, unless arrested by the good sense of the people, or by a re¬ 
curring reverse in the revenue ; and the future advocates of the 
scheme may be defied to show any better grounds for the out¬ 
lay, than will be found in the splendid declamation before us :— 

“ The Emperor of the French,” said he, “ acted for the 
interests of France; it was ours to guard the safety of England, 
and if he were asked, ‘ Why do you suspect the French Emperor 
of designs of war ?’ and still more, ‘ Why do you insult him 
by suspicions of invasion ?’ he should be driven to answer by a 
reference to facts as notorious in France as in England—that 
he apprehended war, because he saw the Emperor of the French 
preparing for it; and he anticipated invasion, because an 
attempted invasion must he a necessary accompaniment of the 
war ; and as they saw unmistakeable proofs of preparation for 
war, so also those who were not wilfully blind, must see the most 
unmistakeable proofs of preparation for invasion ; and as to our 
insulting him by the suspicion, he replied, that no man could be 
insulted by our believing what he himself openly, publicly, and 
ostentatiously told us he would probably do. 

* * * 

“ They (the Emperor’s writings) afforded the key of what 
would otherwise be a mystery, and enable people to interpret 
what would otherwise be unintelligible, namely, that those vast 
preparations, the extension of the navy, the fortification of the 
coast, the enlargement and increase in the number of transports, 
and the conscription for the marine, all indicated preparation 
for a gigantic enterprise, to be undertaken some day or another 
against a gigantic naval Power, and that Power need not be 
named.”* 

He did not, however, confine himself to a description of these 
mighty preparations, but, warming as he proceeded, and giving 
a free rein to his imagination, he thus pictured a descent on our 


* Hansard, civ. 688—9. 




1859 .] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


81 


shores : “ That army would leave its own ports an exultant, 
and, by anticipation, a victorious army. From the moment it 
landed on the shores of England, it would have to fight its way 
with the desperation of a forlorn hope, and, within two or three 
weeks of the landing of the first Zouave, either it would be 
completely annihilated, or London would be taken.”* Having 
passed a glowing eulogy on Lord Lyndhurst, declaring, “ that 
he esteemed it a good fortune and a privilege to have heard the 
speech of that venerable peer, whose courageous exposition of a 
national danger had caused so much sensation, ”f he called for 
measures of immediate protection, in language more suited to a 
Committee of Public Safety than, under the circumstances, to 
the House of Commons :— 

“ Hot a moment must be lost in making the country safe 
against every accident; and until it was so, we must act as if 
the crisis were upon us. Ho human tongue could tell how soon 
or how suddenly it might arrive, and that it might still he 
distant, was our good fortune, of which we should make the 
most. Every public or private yard should be put into full 
work ; every artificer and extra hand should work extra hours, 
as if the war were to begin next week. As gun-boats could be 
built more rapidly than men-of-war, gun-boats should be 
multiplied as fast as possible ; as volunteers could be enrolled 
faster than the line, they should at once be raised; as rifles 
could not be made fast enough in England, we should renew 
that order in Belgium, even though they should cost sixpence 
a piece more than the Horse Guards’ regulation ; and night and 
day, the process of manufacturing, constructing, arming, 
drilling, should go on till the country was made safe, and then 
we might desist from preparations, and return to our peace ex¬ 
penditure, with the certainty that these humiliating, lowering, 
and degrading panic-cries of invasion would never disturb our 
country or our Government again.”| 

The following is the only approach to a fact in the whole speech 
respecting the French naval armaments. “ While we were only 
experimenting, France had already built iron-cased vessels, 
armed with rifled artillery — [Sir Charles Hapier: hear, hear !] 
—and could, at short notice, bring into the Channel a fleet more 


* Hansard , civ. 685. 


t Hansard, ib. 678. 


X Hansard , ib. 686-7. 





82 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[panic III. 

powerful than ours, and could man it more easily with practised 
seamen.”* This was spoken on the 29th of July, 1859. On 
the 6th of February following, the writer of these pages visited 
Toulon, and found workmen employed in hanging the 
armour on the sides of the still unfinished La Gloire, the first 
sea-going iron-clad ship ever built (for England had, at the time, 
more iron-cased floating batteries than France f), and she did not 
make her first trial trip in the Mediterranean till August, 1860, 
or more than a year after these terrified utterances. 

The only way of opposing reason to declamation is by ex¬ 
posing its want of argument and supplying its deficiency of 
facts. The eloquent alarmist called for the multiplication of 
gun-boats, forgetting that we had at that time 162, whilst 
France had only 28; he required that “ every artificer and 
extra hand should work extra hours,” and he had been told 
three weeks previously that a system of “ task and job-work and 
over hours of working had been established in the dockyards J 
to build 46,284 tons, this year, against 19,159 tons last year ;” 
and he totally lost sight of the enormous and almost unprece¬ 
dented superiority of our navy in commission at the time as 
compared with that of France. 

As the agitation now about to break forth out of doors respect¬ 
ing the National Defences, and for the promotion of Rifle Corps, 
was the result of the cry of alarm which was raised in the two 
Houses respecting the naval preparations in France, it may be 
well here to give the official accounts of the two countries for 
1859, the last year for which, at the time of penning these pages, 
the French accounts are definitively audited. The following 
figures, taken from the tables in the first page, will show the 
number of men, the amount expended in dockyard labour, 
and the total expenditure for the navies of the two countries :— 


* Hansard , civ. p. 684. 

t “ The hon. member for Inverness-shire had stated that the buildinsr 
of iron-plated batteries had been neglected in this country. But the fact 
was, that in the year 1855, the French sent two of those floating-batteries 
to the Crimea, and we also sent two; while, in the following year, we had 
not less than eight of them, to the two possessed by the French.”— 
Sir Charles Wood, Hansard, clxi. p. 1158. % Ibid, cliv. p. 912. 



1859 .] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


83 


England 
France . 


1859. 


Number Wages in Total 

of Men. Dockyards. Expenditure. 


72,400 £1,582,112 £11,072,243 
38,470 772,931 8,333,933 


It must be borne in mind that this was the year of the war 
in Italy, when the French navy was called into requisition to 
aid the operations of the army, and especially to assist in the 
transport ot troops to Genoa. Yet, it will be seen, that our 
total expenditure exceeded that of France by the amount of 
£2,738,310. The disproportion is, however, still greater, if we 
compare the other items : in men, our force was nearly double, 
whilst in dockyard expenditure, which has been called the 
“ aggressive outlay,” it was actually more than double. If we 
compare the two years 1858 and 1859, we shall find, that 
whilst France added 8,868 to the number of her men, we 
added 16,517, or in nearly double the proportion to ours. It 
will be found, also, by a comparison of the expenditure in the 
dockyards for the same years, that whilst our increase was 
£590,520, that of France was only £131,977. This shows that 
the increased cost of the French navy was for the current ex¬ 
penses, in materials, coal, provisions, pay, etc., consequent upon 
employing 300 vessels in 1859, as against 199 in 1858, and not 
for building new ships to create a permanent increase of force. 
And this view has been verified by an examination of all the 
details of the French naval expenditure for 1859. If the reader 
will carry his eye carefully back over the whole of the tables in 
the first page, he will find that at no time, for twenty-five 
years, had the naval preparations of England, as measured by 
the number of men, or the expenditure for building ships, been 
so disproportionately great, as compared with those of France 9 
as in 1859. The alarm on this occasion, as in the case of the 
previous panic of 1851, was excited at the very time when it 
happened to have the least foundation, which might appear 
strange, did we not know that panic is not the product of 
reason but passion, and that it is quite as liable to occur under 
one state of circumstances as another. 

Although little allusion will be made to the increase in our 

g 2 


84 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC III. 


land forces, because it has not, as in the case of the navy, been 
generally justified by an appeal to the corresponding prepar¬ 
ations in France, yet it must not be forgotten that the army, 
militia, and ordnance, had undergone augmentations simul¬ 
taneously with those of our fleets. In a subsequent debate on 
the National Defences (5th August), Lord Palmerston said :— 

“ I hold that in the event of war, we could put into the field 
something little short of 200,000 fighting men. We have the 
regular force of, I hope, not less than 60,000 men. Then we 
have the Militia, the establishment of which is 120,000 men ; 
and if that Militia be well recruited and supplied, as, in the 
event of emergency, I am sure would be the case, I reckon 
upon 100,000 there. Then we have 14,000 yeomanry ; 12,000 
or 14,000 pensioners ; and then we have those men who have 
served their ten years, with whom my right hon. friend the 
Secretary for War proposes to deal to-night. We have, also, 
always at home a certain force of marines; and we could, if we 
chose, re-organise our dockyard battalions for the defence of 
those establishments. Putting all these forces together, I say 
that an enemy contemplating an attack upon us must reckon 
upon not less than 200,000 men to resist him.” 

Such was the state of our preparations, by land and sea, 
when Parliament was prorogued, after having laid the train for 
an agitation which spread throughout the country during the 
recess. The Pifle Corps movement, which now arose, is of such 
recent origin, and the subsequent proceedings to promote its 
success, are so fresh in the memory of all, that it is unnecessary 
to dwell on the subject. Not only were special meetings called 
to forward the object, but at every public gathering, whatever 
its origin or purpose, the topic was sure to be obtruded. Espe- 
pecially was it so at the Agricultural Society’s meetings, whose 
orators, instead of descanting on the rival breeds of cattle, or 
the various kinds of tillage, discussed the prospects of an in¬ 
vasion and the best mode of dealing with the invaders :—“How 
much will you charge the French for your corn when they 
land ?” cried one of his audience, to a sturdy Somersetshire yeo¬ 
man who was on his legs addressing them; and his reply—“ They 
shall pay for it with their blood ”—elicited rounds of applause. 
The assumption everywhere was—founded on the declarations 
made in Parliament—that France was surpassing us as a naval 


I860.] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


85 


power, that she was our equal in the largest ships, and was now 
providing herself with an iron-cased fleet, in which description 
of vessels we were quite unprepared, and that we must, there¬ 
fore, he ready to fight for freedom on our own soil. The am¬ 
bitious designs of the third Napoleon were discussed in 
language scarcely less denunciatory than that which had been 
applied to his uncle fifty years before. To doubt his hostile 
intentions was a proof of either want of patriotism or of saga¬ 
city :—had not venerable peers proclaimed their alarm, and 
would they have broken through their habitual reserve without 
sufficient cause ? And did not successive Governments make 
enormous additions to our Navy Estimates: they were in a 
position to command exclusive information, and was it likely, 
unless they had positive proofs of impending danger, that they 
would have imposed such unnecessary expense on the country ? 
This last appeal was quite irresistible, for the good British 
public defer, with a faith amounting to a superstition, to the 
authority of official men. All this tended to throw the 
odium of our increased taxation on the Emperor, who was 
supposed to personify our national danger; and the ominous 
words were sometimes heard : “We had better fight it out.” 
Such was the state of fear, irritation, and resentment, in which 
the public mind was thrown towards the close of 1859 ; and 
probably at no previous time, within the experience of the 
present generation, had an accident afforded the occasion, 
would the country have been so resigned to a war with 
France. 

It was under these circumstances, that the writer of these 
pages visited Paris* on an errand which detained him in 
France for more than a year. For several months afterwards, 
the reports of speeches at Rifle Corps meetings continued to 
reach the French capital, having for their invariable burden 
complaints of the hostile attitude of the ruler of France, 


* The following incident will illustrate the state of public feeling. On 
his way to Paris, the writer passed a day or two at Brighton, where he met 
a friend, certainly one of the last men to be charged with a deficiency of 
courage, who, on learning the writer’s destination, avowed that he had been 
deterred from taking his family, for the autumn, to the French metropolis 
by the fear of a rupture with France, and the risk of being detained 
prisoner by the Emperor, after the precedent of 1803. 



86 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC III. 


whose character and designs, it must be confessed, were 
portrayed in not the most flattering colours. The effect pro¬ 
duced, by the invasion panic in England, was very dissimilar 
upon different classes in France. Statesmen, and men of 
education and experience, did not give the British Govern¬ 
ment credit for sincerity, when it made the alleged naval arma¬ 
ments of France the plea for extraordinary warlike preparations. 
Their opinion could not be better expressed than in the words 
of M. Ducos (already quoted), who, when writing privately to 
one of his colleagues during the former panic, observed, that, 
“ the English cabinet may possibly not be very much distressed 
by these imaginary terrors (as we have sometimes seen among 
ourselves), inasmuch as they enable them to swell their budget, 
and serve to strengthen a somewhat uncertain majority in 
Parliament.”* And some pungent remarks in this sense were 
frequently heard in the circles of Parisian society, f But 
among the less intelligent masses of the people, the effect was 
different. Their ears had caught the echo of the voice of Sir 
Charles Napier, who had been for years incessantly proclaiming 
our naval inferiority, until there was at last a wide-spread 
popular belief that France had become the mistress of the 
Channel. With the exception of an occasional article in a 
semi-official journal, giving a comparison of the naval expen¬ 
ditures of the two Governments, with perhaps a self-complacent 
commentary on the superior economy of the French administra¬ 
tion, nothing was done to disabuse the public mind on the 
subject. And this popular delusion might have been an element 
of danger to the peace of the two countries, had it not been 
for the character of the Emperor, who, throughout these provo¬ 
cations, displayed a perfect equanimity and self-control,—the 
rarest quality to be found in those who have climbed the dizzy 
heights of power. 

During his residence in France, the writer profited by the 
best possible opportunity for making himself acquainted with 
the naval preparations of that country. The arsenals were open 
to him or his friends, and there was no official information 


* Ante, p. 33. 

+ “Ah, pauvre John Bull!” exclaimed a lady in the presence of the 
writer, “ quand en veut lui enlever son argent on lui faitpeur de nous.” 



I860.] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


87 


which he sought and failed to obtain. The result of this 
investigation was merely to confirm the conviction which had 
been previously derived from our own official documents. Had 
it been otherwise, these pages would not have been penned; 
and yet the writer asks no credit for any statement they contain, 
on the ground of his private or exclusive sources of information. 
The facts contained in the following, as in the preceding pages, 
must owe all their value to the public and official sources, 
equally accessible to everybody, from whence they are derived* 
In the citations from Hansard, it has been thought fair to allow 
the statesmen who officiate in that great laboratory of our 
history, the British parliament, to be heard as much as possible 
in their own language. 

On the 13th February, 1860, the Navy Estimates were pro¬ 
posed to the House ; but before the Secretary of the Admiralty 
was permitted to commence his task, the ever-watchful and 
indefatigable Mr. Williams entered his protest against “ the 
enormous increase in the Estimates for the present year,” 
asserting that, “ the grand total, which exceeded <£12,800,000, 
was larger in amount by more than £1,000,000 than any that 
had ever been presented to that House in a time of peace ” ; 
and he proceeded to remark that “ the number of men required 
for the navy this year of peace was 85,500, being 6,000 more 
than they required when they were actually at war with 
Russia.” Mr. Lindsay, and Mr. Bentinck rose successively to 
acquit the Secretary of the Admiralty of all responsibility for 
not being able “ to carry out in office the economical views he 
had expressed in opposition.” It will be necessary not only to 
accept this generous theoiy, but still farther to enlarge the bill 
of indemnity, and assume that the statement now made was 
not the speech of Lord Clarence Paget, but that it was prepared 
for him by those who were responsible for the Estimates. 

To reconcile the country to this enormous expenditure, it was 
necessary that the French navy should be made to assume very 
alarming proportions. But how was this to be accomplished by 
any ordinary mode of comparison P If the expenditure in the 
dockyards had been compared, ours would have been shown to 
be double that of France ; if it had been a comparison of sea¬ 
men, the number voted, together with the reserve, would have 
been found nearly three times as great in England as in France ; 


88 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[panic III. 


had the ships in commission, or the ships afloat in the two 
navies, been compared, the effect would have been the reverse 
of what was desired. A very ingenious and perfectly original 
mode of comparison was adopted. The number of ships in 
commission in England was compared with the number afloat in 
France ; they chanced to be 244 in each case,* and this equality 
was, perhaps, the temptation to adopt the new method. Had 
the numbers afloat in both cases been given, they would have 
been, as afterwards incidentally appears in the statement, 244 
French and 456 English.t In justification of this mode of 
comparison, by which all the British vessels not having crews 
were left out of the account, it was alleged that, “ while all the 
French ships that were afloat could be manned at a very short 
notice, it was only those which we had in commission which 
were in a similar position. It is to be regretted that there 
was no Lord Clarence Paget in opposition to ask—“ of what use 
could it be to build ships and launch them, if they were after¬ 
wards to count for nothing ?” But it is curious to observe, in 
another part of the same statement, how this difficulty is sur¬ 
mounted, for, in speaking of the facility with which seamen had 
been obtained, it is said— 

“And perhaps I had better add a more practical assu¬ 
rance, that, if we wished, we could not enter them (seamen) in 
the navy, because the number is complete, and, except for 
casualties, we have no means of entering any considerable 
number of men over and above what we have at present. I 
think that is a very satisfactory state of things, and that the 
house will be glad to hear that there is no difficulty in getting 
men. This vast force of ships, only the creation of the last 
few months, is wholly manned. ”§ 

Now, it is high time that we shook off this bugbear of the 
difficulty of manning the navy, and learnt to rely on the in¬ 
fallible law of demand and supply. Formerly, we trusted to 
the press-gang to steal the men; in future we shall find it a 
cheaper and safer method to pay the market price for them.^f 


* Hansard, clvi. 966-9. f Hansard, ib., 966-9. 

X Hansard', ib., 967. § Hansard, ib., 974. 

IT “ If they wanted men in the navy they must resort to the same means 
as a mercantile man or a millowner—namely, offer a good market price 





I860.] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


89 


This is illustrated by the case before us. At the moment when 
this statement was made, there was a bounty payable of <£4 for 
able and <£2 for ordinary seamen. It had been fixed at £10 the 
year before by Sir John Pakington, but it was soon found not 
to be necessary to pay so high a bounty to bring our navy up 
to 80,000 men. Now, we will suppose that a war was im¬ 
pending, and that the country required the services of 150,000 
instead of 80,000 seamen,—is there anjr doubt that England 
could afford to pay the necessary price for them P There is no 
kind of skilled labour so available, because there is none so 
migratory and so free from local ties as that of the sailor. Let 
us assume a sudden and urgent necessity to arise, and that our 
Government offered to pay £40 a-year, to able-bodied seamen, 
which would be £10 or £15 more than the present pay, taking 
care that, the wages be paid monthly, in order to avoid 
the temptation to desert, which would be offered by paying 
a bounty in advance,— unquestionably such an offer would give 
the Admiralty the pick not only of our own merchant service, 
but of the seamen sailing out of American, German, and Scan¬ 
dinavian ports. Now, £40 each for 150,000 seamen amounts 
to just £6,000,000 a-year. It is about sixpence in the pound 
of the income-tax, or half the amount paid in excise and cus¬ 
toms duties by the consumers of ardent spirits. A nation so 
rich as this would cheerfully pay such an amount for its defence 
in case of danger. It would be but the most fractional per¬ 
centage of insurance on the thousands of millions worth of 
property in these islands, and would be only about five per 
cent, on the estimated average value of the ships and cargoes 
afloat belonging to British owners. But if it be admitted that 
at least on these, if not on cheaper terms, the seamen will be 
forthcoming in case of an impending war, what becomes of the 
argument that we can only calculate on manning those ships 
which are already in commission ? 


for labour. If they wanted sailors they must offer to pay sufficiently high 
to induce them to come forward and enter the service. To expect men to 
enter for low wages would only lead to disappointment; it would be found 
to be impossible to get them without high wages. That was the only 
fair and just way of obtaining them,—but hitherto the House of Com¬ 
mons had refused to adopt it.”— Sir Charles Napier. Hansard, clvii. 
1810. 



90 ‘ 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC ITT. 

If we pursue the statement of the Secretary of the Admiralty 
a little more into details, we find, on comparing the whole of 
the screw line-of-battle ships, built and building, in the two 
navies, that whilst France is stated to possess thirty-seven, 
England is put down at fifty-nine, with the nine blockships 
making sixty-eight. The English frigates are set down at 
forty-five, and the French at forty-seven, including the fifteen 
old transatlantic paddle steamers. In the smaller descriptions 
of vessels, our number was double that of the French. 

The striking fact is given in this statement that we had still 
twelve sailing line-of-battle ships fit for conversion into screw 
steamers. Now, considering that the Admiralty had, ever 
since 1850, professed to lay down no vessels of this class which 
were not expressly designed for steam machinery, thus recog¬ 
nising that sailing vessels were for the future obsolete, what 
shall be said of the policy of continuing to build new ships, and 
leaving twelve sailing vessels still fit to be converted in 1860, 
to say nothing of those which had in the interval been decaying 
in ordinary, and rendered unfit for conversion. And what 
must be thought of those who, when this mismanagement 
became apparent, directed the cry of alarm and resentment 
against France, because, by pursuing a more provident course, 
she had, in a shorter time, and at less expense, attained more 
satisfactory results than ourselves? The following is the 
account of the tonnage built in the past year, and estimate for 
the year following :— 

“ It may possibly be remembered that, in proposing the 
estimates last year, we announced our intention, of course 
subject to contingencies, of building 46,000 tons of shipping 
in the dockyards. [Sir J. Pakington: ‘ Exclusive of 

conversions?’] We said we would convert four line- 
of-battle ships and five frigates in addition. What we have 
actually built amounts to 19,730 tons in ships of the line, 
13,654 in frigates, 5,436 in corvettes, and 5,224 in sloops and 
gun-vessels. We have not fulfilled our promise as to frigates, 
in which class I stated that we would build 16,000 tons, the 
reason being that there was an insufficiency of timber for the 
purpose; but we have made up for the deficiency in another 
way, for we have gone beyond our undertaking in the conver¬ 
sion of sailing into steam frigates and screw ships. What we 
propose doing in the present, or, as my right hon. friend 


I860.] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


91 


reminds me, the ensuing financial year, is to build 13,216 tons 
ot ships of the line, 13,500 tons of frigates, 4,871 tons of cor¬ 
vettes, 8,045 tons of sloops and gun-vessels, and 302 tons of 
gunboats, making a total of 39,934 tons. In addition, we 
propose to convert four more line-of-battle ships and four 
frigates/’* 

The estimated constructions for the ensuing year are thus 
explained in ships instead of tonnage :— 

“ Supposing the Comtnittee is pleased to consent to these 
estimates, we hope to add to the navy, before the end of the 
next financial year, eight line-of-battle ships, twelve frigates, 
four iron-cased ships, four corvettes, fifteen sloops, and twenty- 
three gun-vessels and gunboats. That includes the conversion 
of four line-of-battle ships and four frigates. ”f 

It is impossible to deal with this proposal of the Secretary 
of the Admiralty to add eight line-of-battle ships and twelve 
frigates to our steam navy, without referring to the part he had 
previously taken in opposition to the further construction of 
large ships, for he was the first and ablest opponent of the 
policy which he now followed when in office. So long ago as 
May, 1857, he expressed his opinion that line-of-hattle ships 
were “ not the instruments by which in future the fate of 
empires would be decided.”J He then advised the First Lord 
to ‘‘ rest on his oars,” § and stated that “an Enquete or Com¬ 
mission was sitting in France to inquire whether line-of-battle 
ships were or were not the most efficient class of ships which 
could now be employed.”|| Every circumstance which had since 
occurred tended to confirm the views then expressed by Lord 
Clarence Paget. As each new experiment with artillery dis¬ 
played the destructive effects of detonating shells, or of molten 
iron, even the oldest admirals raised their hands and exclaimed, 
“ There is an end of wooden ships of the line!” The Enquete 
or Commission appointed in France was known to have decided 
against line-of-battle ships, for in the report upon the compara¬ 
tive state of the English and French navies presented to the 
House in 1859, it is stated that naval men in France “were of 
opinion that no more ships of the line will be laid down, and 


* Hansard, clvi. 978. + Hansard, clvi. 969. 

t Ante, p. 46. § Ibid. || Ibid. 



92 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[panic III. 

that in ten years that class of vessels will have become obso¬ 
lete.”* This had reference to the successful experiments in 
iron-cased ships. 

But, independent of this innovation, the opinion of the 
highest nautical authorities had been pronounced against the 
policy of exposing such a huge target as a line-of-battle ship, 
with perhaps a thousand men and thirty or forty tons of gun¬ 
powder on board, to the fire of modern shell guns. The 
Americans had abandoned these large ships before the iron-clad 
vessels were thought of, and it is stated that when their greatest 
authority, Captain Dahlgren, visited our ports more than three 
years ago, although he was much struck with the gun-boats, to 
which he devoted particular attention, he looked upon line-of- 
battle ships as all but obsolete, and considered that, so far as 
America was concerned, her naval policy “ would render the 
construction of such vessels almost useless/’f The condemna¬ 
tion of wooden ships of the line by intelligent naval men had 
found utterance in very emphatic phrases:—“ They will be 
blown to lucifer matches/’ said one ; “ they will be mere human 
slaughter-houses,” said another; whilst a third declared that, 
in case of two such vessels coming into collision, at close 
quarters, the only word of command for which there would be 
time would be, “ Fire, and lower your boats.” 

The comparative numbers of these vessels possessed by 
England and France deprived the Admiralty of every pretext 
for this increase. The Secretary, in his statement, informs us 
that we had at the time sixty-eight ships of the line, including 
blockships, whilst France had only thirty-seven; and as Sir 
Charles Wood had stated the French force in 1847 at forty, J and 
as they were put down also at forty in the report of 1859, § it 
was clear in 1860, that our neighbour had abandoned the further 
building of these vessels. All these facts were well known to 
our Government, when they were pushing forward the construc¬ 
tion of large wooden vessels at a rate of expenditure un¬ 
paralleled even at the height of the great French war. It will 
presently be seen, that so manifest did the impolicy of this 


* Parliamentary Paper , 182 of 1859, p. 15. 

+ The Navies of the World , by Hans Busk, p. 116. 
X Ante, 44. § Ante , 57. 





I860.] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


93 


course at length become to everybody except tbe Admiralty, 
that the common sense of tbe House of Commons rose in revolt 
the following session, and extorted from tbe minister a pledge to 
discontinue the further building of ships-of-the-line, and to 
abandon, unfinished, those on the stocks. The gigantic sacrifice 
involved in this outlay of public money will, in a very few 
years, be brought home to the appreciation of the British 
public, in the possession of hundreds of wooden vessels of dif¬ 
ferent sizes which will be acknowledged to be valueless and 
even dangerous to their possessors, and then only will be fully 
estimated the system of management which could have created 
such a costly monument to its own recklessness and want of 
forethought. 

It is impossible to doubt that the Secretary of the Admiralty 
remained unchanged in the views he had expressed when in 
opposition, indeed, any intelligent and unprejudiced mind 
must have become confirmed by experience in those sound 
opinions. Whilst extending to him the full benefit of that 
dispensation from individual responsibility which is claimed 
for those who become members of a government, it is to be 
desired, in the interest of the country, which has also its claim 
on the talents and judgment of public men, that some casuist, 
skilled in political ethics, would define the limit of incon¬ 
sistency beyond which politicians shall not be allowed to 
wander. 

The navy estimates, the unparalleled amount of which was 
accurately described in the brief protest of Mr. Williams, were 
agreed to without further opposition; and it is in connection 
with this fact that the reader is asked to regard the demon¬ 
stration which now calls for notice. 

On the 1st May, 1860, Lord Lyndhurst rose in the House of 
Peers, pursuant to previous notice, to call for explanations from 
the Government respecting the progress of the naval reserve, 
when he delivered a speech identical in spirit and object with 
that of the previous year. 

Of the many voices that have been raised to agitate the 
public mind on the subject of our armaments, none has found 
a louder echo on the Continent than that of this learned peer. 
It is only the natural result of his high position and great 
ability. To him in the Lords, and Mr. Horsman and Sir 


94 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC III. 


Charles Napier in the Commons, and to the connivance of suc¬ 
cessive Governments, are mainly attributed, in France, the 
success of the invasion panic. “ The motions of Lord Lynd- 
hurst and of Mr. Horsman,” says M. Cucheval Clarigny, “ the 
speeches and letters of Sir Charles Napier; the exaggerations, 
sincere or pretended, of the orators of the Government and ot 
the opposition, about the forces of France—all had contributed 
to create a kind of panic in England/’* 

Lord Lyndhurst had, on a previous occasion, resented the 
remarks of an adverse critic in the House of Commons, who 
had alluded to his great age. It must be allowed that his 
speeches invite no such allusion, unless to elicit even from an 
opponent the tribute of admiration for their great intellectual 
merits. The close and logical reasoning of his latest speeches, 
so free from the garrulity, or the tendency to narrative, which 
generally take the place of argument in the discourses of the 
aged, presents an instance of the late preservation of the mental 
powers for which it would be difficult to find a parallel. In 
conceding to him, however, all the authority which attaches to 
the possession of unimpaired faculties, he becomes divested of 
that privilege by which the venerable in years are shielded from 
an unequal conflict with other men, and he must consent to be 
held amenable to criticism for his public utterances, and for 
the proper exercise of the influence which his learning and rank 
confer on him. 

England and France had been at peace for forty-five years, 
and just previously a treaty of commerce had been entered into 
which was designed to strengthen the bonds of friendship 
between the two countries. Passing over this event, with a 
sneer at “ the further exchange of pottery and cotton for silks 
and wine,” he seized this inopportune moment for going back 
half a century to disinter the buried strife of our fathers, and 
again to taunt our brave neighbours with their naval reverses : 
—“ The French navy,” he said, “ was, by the great victory of 
the Nile, the victory of Lord Duncan, that of Lord St. Vin¬ 
cent, and the great and splendid victory of Trafalgar, reduced 
at the termination of the war to such a state that for twenty 
years after that period we remained, as far as our navy was 


“ The Navy Budgets of England and France,” p. 69. 





I860.] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


95 


concerned, in a state of perfect tranquillity.” The aim of 
the speaker was to show that the restoration of the French navy 
was the work of Louis Napoleon. He must be allowed to be 
heard in his own language :— 

“ Such, my Lords, was the result of the efforts made during 
the great French war. Very little change took place until after 
the memorable event which I now beg to call to your attention, 
I mean the accession to supreme power of the present Emperor 
of the French. In the year 1848 he was elected President of 
the Pepublic ; and in the following year that celebrated Com¬ 
mission was appointed for the purpose of considering the re-or¬ 
ganisation of the navy of France. That Commission was 
composed of fifteen or more of the most able men selected 
from the navy and from the civil service of France, and they 
have framed a code of regulations of the most complete kind, 
for the purpose of stimulating and directing the efforts of 
the French navy. I have stated one remarkable date with 
respect to the issuing of that Commission. There is another 
date equally remarkable. No report was called for from that 
Commission until after the celebrated event of the 2nd of 
December. About twelve or fourteen days after that coup 
d'etat, namely on the 15th of December, a report was called 
for by Louis Napoleon, and from that time the most strenuous 
exertions have been made to carry all the recommendations 
of that Committee into effect.”* 

Now, here are specific and tangible facts, which are not often 
found in speeches on this topic. In the first place, it is alleged 
that there was very little change in the relations of the 
English and French navies until after the election of Louis 
Napoleon as President of the Pepublic. It has been shown in 
the preceding pages, that the French navy bore a much larger 
proportion to that of England during the latter part of Louis 
Philippe’s reign, than it has done since Louis Napoleon has 
been at the head of affairs. If the reader will give himself the 
trouble to turn to the tables in the first page, and compare the 
period between 1840 and 1848, with that between 1849 and 
1859, he will see how much more largely the disproportion has 


* Hansard, clviii. 42o. 



THE THREE PANICS. 


96 


[panic hi. 


been to the disadvantage of France during the latter than the 
former period. 

Next, there is an allusion to a Commission appointed in 1849, 
the year after the election of Louis Napoleon as President, to 
consider the reorganisation of the French navy, and it might 
be inferred that this Commission was named by the President. 
It was, however, an Enquete Parlementaire , emanating from the 
National Assembly, by a law of the 31st October, 1849, at a 
time when Louis Napoleon had acquired no ascendancy over 
that body. 

Then, we have the portentous revelation, that this Commission 
had framed “ a code of regulations of the most complete kind,” 
that no Report was called for until after the 2nd December, 
1851 (the date of the Coup d’Etat) that about twelve or four¬ 
teen days after, “namely on the 15th December, a report was 
called for by Louis Napoleon, and from that time the most 
strenuous exertions have been made to carry all the recom¬ 
mendations of that Committee into effect.” Now, this is not 
only an ingenious argument, but an effective appeal to our 
imaginations. Here was an ambitious man who had just 
thrown down the gauntlet to the National Assembly, which he 
had dissolved, and had appealed to the country to arbitrate be¬ 
tween him and that body : and yet, while his fate was trembling 
in the balance, and it was still to be decided whether he should 
take a step towards the throne, or be again driven into exile, 
the one great dominant purpose of his life was never for a 
moment forgotten, the only absorbing thought of his mind 
was vengeance to England! How deep and enduring must 
have been his hate, that, even whilst the vote by universal 
suffrage was going on, instead of thinking of the state of the 
poll, he should call for the Report on the state of the navy! 
The argument was worthy of the speaker in his best days, in 
Westminster Hall; but, unluckily for the noble and learned 
lord, he departed from the usual vague declamation on this 
topic, and appealed to facts and dates. It is really almost in¬ 
credible that a judicial peer, speaking in the highest assembly 
in the kingdom, conscious of the weight that would attach to 
his words, and accustomed to weigh and examine evidence, 
should have permitted himself to be the medium for making 
this extraordinary statement. These are the simple facts:— 


I860.] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


97 


The Commission, or Enquete Parlementaire , was, as has been 
stated, appointed by the Assemblee Nationale, on the 31st 
October, 1849. It pursued its labours for upwards of two 
years, examining witnesses, visiting the dockyards, and calling 
for accounts and papers. The result of these investigations 
was printed in two thick quarto volumes, which we should call 
“ blue books,” comprising the minutes of evidence, and an 
appendix of official documents. The preface to these volumes, 
dated 30th January, 1852, gives a brief and simple narrative 
of the singular fate of the commission, which was cut off, at 
the most critical moment of its existence, by the coup (Cetat of 
the 2nd December, 1851, when the National Assembly itself 
was dissolved. 

It appears that M. Dufaure, the Reporter—or, as we should 
say in England, the Chairman—of the Commission had read to 
his colleagues a part only of his Report, which was ordered to 
be printed, and to be distributed among the members previous 
to their deliberations, but the preface proceeds to say, “ This 
was rendered impossible after the 2nd December. Neither the 
Commission nor the Assembly from which it emanated could 
meet again. Its task, therefore, remained unaccomplished.” 
It further states that, “ the whole of the resolutions of the 
Commission were only provisional, and on some important 
points they had not even deliberated ” : and it adds, in con¬ 
clusion, that, “ If the Report should be published, with the 
documents which ought to accompany it, it will not have been 
submitted to the Commission; it will only be the production of 
the individual Reporter, who alone will be responsible for the 
opinions expressed in it.” 

Upwards of 200 “ provisional ” votes of the Commission are 
recorded in the minutes of proceedings. The first on the list, 
after the routine votes, and the most important as affecting 
ourselves, is a recommendation that the maximum of the 
number of line-of-battle ships should thenceforth be forty-five ; 
namely, thirty afloat and fifteen on the stocks, and that they 
should all be furnished with screws. It was a moderate limit 
compared with the old naval establishment of France. “ From 
that time,” says Lord Lyndhurst, “ the most strenuous exertions 
have been made to carry all the recommendations of the Com¬ 
mission into effect.” There were no recommendations of the 

H 


98 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC III. 

Commission, for it never made a Report. But, so far was the 
Government from taking prompt measures to carry out tlie 
“ provisional ” resolution respecting screw line-of-battle skips, 
that in 1854, in the height of the Crimean war, the French 
had only ten screw liners ; * and Sir Charles Napier stated that 
they had but one in the Baltic in that year, f Indeed, it is now 
universally agreed, that it was subsequently to that period that 
serious efforts were made to convert the French sailing ships 
into a steam navy: “ the great increase in the naval force ol 
France,” says a writer already quoted, “ may, therefore, be con¬ 
sidered to date from the Crimean war.” J 

But the gravest inaccuracy in Lord Lyndhurst’s statement 
remains to be noticed, where he links the present state of the 
French navy with the labours of the Commission of 1849. 
“ The result of that Commission,” he said, “ and of the ad¬ 
mirable system which was formed under it, has turned out to 
be a formidable navy—a formidable navy of steam-vessels, to 
which alone I confine my observations.” § He was clearly not 
aware of what had taken [place subsequently to the untimely 
dissolution of that body. In 1855, a Commission was ap¬ 
pointed by the Emperor’s Government, to consider the organisa¬ 
tion of the navy; and the result was a Report from the Minister 
of Marine, which was approved by a decree of the Emperor, in 
1857, fixing the number of ships to be built, from year to year, 
until 1870 ; and this decree was published to the whole world. 
The line-of-battle ships were to reach a maximum of forty, 
instead of forty-five, as recommended by the resolution of the 
Commission of 1849. The Report contains the exact nomen¬ 
clature of French shipping, with the strength of each ship in 
guns and horse-power. In fact, if it were not for the inno¬ 
vations which science is incessantly making, involving the re¬ 
construction of her navy, all Europe might know, from this 
decree, for nearly ten years to come, what ships of all kinds 
France would possess. 

If we turn to that part of Lord Lyndhurst’s speech, which 
referred to the state of our own navy, we shall find that, instead 
of dealing with the Estimates of the year in which he spoke, 

* Navies of the World , p. 88. f Hansard , civ. 702. 

t Navies of the World, p. 89. § Hansard , clviii. 420. 






THE THREE PANICS. 


99 


I860.] 

lie preferred to revive those figures of Sir John Pakington, 
which had done such good service the previous year. Leaving 
totally out of view upwards of 800 of our steam ships of war 
afloat, ranging from corvettes to gun-boats, all capable of 
carrying the heaviest guns, and the hundreds of large merchant- 
steamers which would be available in case of war, and omitting 
all allusion to the great increase in our ships of the line and 
frigates during the preceding year, he thus proceeded to lay 
before his audience the state of our navy :— 

“ At the beginning of last j^ear, our fleet consisted of 
twenty-nine sail of the line, and the French fleet of pre¬ 
cisely the same number ; while we had twenty-six frigates, 
they had thirty-four.” And he added, with singular candour, 
that “ what addition has been made to our fleet, since the com¬ 
mencement of last year, I am not informed.” It would have 
been only an act of ordinary prudence to have perused the 
sjoeecli of Lord Clarence Paget, delivered more than two 
months before ; or, at least, to have possessed himself of a copy 
of the Navy Estimates for 1860. He would have then learnt 
that England had 456 steamers of all kinds afloat, against 244 
in France; and it would have saved him from falling into the 
erroneous opinion which he expressed, in proceeding to say : 
“ I do not imagine that at this moment our fleet exceeds, or if it 
does, only in a small degree, the steam naval force of France.” 

The object of the speech, however, was to show the danger 
we were in from want of seamen,—a point on which the noble 
speaker would also have been better informed, if he had perused 
the speech of the Secretary of the Admiralty, who had taken a 
vote for 85,500 men and boys, and had declared that more 
seamen were offering than the Admiralty required. “ In point 
of material,” said Lord Lyndhurst, “ that is to say in ships, 
you are far below the requirements of the country; while, so 
far as the manning of the ships is concerned, you are in a 
situation the most deplorable. I do not mince the matter. 
Our position, in this respect, ought to be known throughout 
the country. No man ought to be ignorant of the real facts of 
the case.”* Now, considering that he was, by his own con- 


* Hansard, clviii. 435. 
H 2 






100 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC III. 


fessioii at the moment, in ignorance of all that had occurred in 
the navy since the previous year, this confident tone of the 
speaker implied, at least, a strong belief in the favourable temper 
of his audience. 

And it was undoubtedly to this favourable state of feeling in 
the Peers that the success of these speeches, both indoors and 
without, was mainly due; for they did not contain one fact 
that would bear the test of fair examination. The Upper 
House had, indeed, been the platform whence this invasion 
agitation spread throughout a large portion of the middle ranks 
of society. The Peers had made it fashionable to believe in the 
hostile designs of Louis Uapoleon, and it became, to a certain 
extent, a test of respectability to be zealous in the promotion of 
rifle-corps, and other means of defending the country. To 
contend against the probability of invasion was to take the side 
of the enemy, to be called anti-English, or accused of being for 
peace at any price; nay, to require even proofs or arguments 
to show the reality of the danger, was to invite suspicion of 
want of patriotism. There was a kind of genteel terrorism 
exerted over everybody in “ society,” which, for a time, put 
down all opposition to the invasion party,—which was tacitly 
understood to be the aristocratic, anti-radical party. This 
animus (reminding one of 1791) reveals itself in the speech 
before us in a manner which would have been to the last 
degree impolitic, if there had really been any danger from a 
foreign enemy, requiring “ every class to unite in support of 
the honour and independence of the nation.” In his con¬ 
cluding sentences, the noble speaker, who is too logical to have 
introduced such irrelevant matter had it not been to conciliate 
those he was addressing, protests against a reform of Parlia¬ 
ment, and animadverts severely on those whom he characterises 
as being in favour of direct taxation or desirous of introducing 
among us the social “ equality, without liberty, that exists in 
France,” or who are seeking to “ pull down the wealthier and 
aristocratic classes.” 

The Duke of Somerset, the First Lord of the Admiralty, in 
his reply to Lord Lyndliurst, gave the following account of 
the labour which the Government was employing in the 
construction of those large wooden vessels which had been 


I860.] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


101 


condemned as worse than useless by some of the highest naval 
authorities in Europe and America*:— 

1 1 And I can say that during the last eight months more men 
have been employed in our dockyards than at any previous 
period of the history of the country. I do not exclude the 
time of the great war, down to 1815 ; and in this statement, I 
exclude the factories altogether, which form another great 
division of our naval establishments. I speak of the ship¬ 
building department only.” 

* * * * 

“ The noble and learned lord referred to the ships which we 
have now afloat. I find that we have built, and that there are 
now afloat, fifty ships of the line. 

“ Lord Lyndhurst .—Do you include block-ships ? 

“ The Duke of Somerset .—I am not taking the block-ships into 
account.” f 

The little question and answer, at the close of the above 
extract, illustrates the manner in which the Coast-Guard block- 
ships are, by all Governments, left out of the numerical list of 
our ships of the line. It is true, they are sometimes alluded to, 
incidentally, as being fit for guarding harbours or mouths of 
rivers. But the question always recurs: seeing that these 
ships have the full complement of officers, the most complete 
armament, and picked seamen provided for them, seeing that 
they have a fleet of fifteen to twenty steam gun-boats attached 
to them, besides sailing vessels, and that they are all placed 
under a flag-officer,—why, during the time when scores of good 
sailing line-of-battle ships were decaying in ordinary, were not 
some of them fitted with screws and substituted for such of the 
block-ships, as are alleged to be not fit for Channel service P 
Some people will be uncharitable enough to suspect that the 
object is to have an excuse for another Channel fleet. 

The following is the manner in which the “First Lord” 


* Lord Clarence Paget had, a fortnight previously stated, in the House 
of Commons, that “ the total number of persons employed in the dock¬ 
yards, on the 1st March, was 20,032”; and he stated subsequently 
(8th June), that the greatest number employed during the great war with 
France, was only 14,754.”— Hansard , clvii. 2014. 
t Hansard, clviii. 438-9. 




102 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC III. 


replied to Lord Lyndliurst upon the progress which had been 
made since the previous year in manning the navy:— 

“ The noble and learned lord says we have the ships, but the 
ships are not half manned ; but it so happens, that it is just the 
contrary difficulty under which we have laboured. On coming 
into office, I found certain estimates prepared, and a £10 bounty 
in existence. I adopted these, and before the month of August 
I found that the number of men voted by Parliament was ex¬ 
ceeded by 1000. The news of the Chinese disaster arrived in 
September, and I did not think it was prudent, under these 
circumstances, to put a stop to the enrolment of seamen; the 
result is that, for the last six months, we have been 5000 in 
excess of the vote. This year we determined to cover that 
larger number by a larger vote, but they were still coming in so 
rapidly that I was obliged to come to the determination only to 
take able seamen, or ordinary seamen who had already served 
on board the fleet and been drilled to the guns. When the 
noble and learned lord says, that, if we look to the last month or 
so, it will be found that we were not getting men; of course 
that was so. The men we have are included in the estimates, 
and it was not likely I should be taking additional men when I 
had already 5,000 men more than had been provided for.”* 

This statement completely cut the ground from under the 
feet of Lord Lyndliurst;—but it did more,—it showed that the 
Government had no excuse for entertaining the question of a 
reserve at that moment at all. The formation of a reserve 
would be a legitimate measure in connection with a peace 
establishment; but our navy was not on a peace footing. Let 
the reader be good enough to turn to the accounts in the first 
page, and placing his finger on the number of men in the 
English navy in 1852, the year before the Russian war, let him 
run his eye back over the table to the commencement in 1835, 
and he will find only four years in the eighteen in which the 
Seamen were one half the number (85,500) voted for 1860 ; and 
the highest number on record in a year of peace previous to the 
Russian war was 44,960. 

The French state their complement of men for 1860 at 
30,588, namely 26,329 afloat, and 4,259 in reserve. Rut as the 


* Hansard, clviii. 440. 




I860.] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


103 


accounts for 1860 are not yet definitively audited, this estimate 
as it may be called, is open to the objection which has been 
recngnised from the first. It will be better to take an authority 
which will not be disputed on this side of the water. In the 
month of March following, Lord Carence Paget* states the 
number of French seamen at 34,000, of which 10,000 were 
from the military conscription or landsmen. This statement 
was repeated by Lord Palmerston, j The reader is now asked 
to refer to the accounts in the first page, and casting his eye 
over the table of men in the French navy from 1852 back to 
the commencement, to compare the 34,000 maintained in i860 
with the numbers in each of those eighteen years. He will not 
find an increase comparable with that in the English table. In 
more than one of those years, the number exceeded that of 1860, 
and in many years of Louis Philippe’s reign the numbers ap¬ 
proached very nearly to that of the above year. 

The more inrportant test, however, is the proportion of force 
maintained by each of the two countries in 1860 and at former 
periods. The reader’s attention is especially asked to this point, 
for it involves the whole question at issue as to the alleged 
responsibility of France for the great increase in our naval arma¬ 
ments. Turning to the accounts, we find, on looking down the two 
columns of seamen, that England generally had about twenty- 
five or thirty per cent more men than France. In portions of 
Louis Philippe’s reign the superiority was much less on the side 
of England. In 1840-41, for instance, Franco approached very 
nearly to an equality with us. Taking the average number 
maintained by France for the whole period of eighteen years 
down to 1852, the year before the Prussian war, and comparing 
it with the average number maintained by England, they were 
27,962 French and 38,085 English. In 1860, as we have seen, 
they were 34,000 French and 85,500 English. In other words, 
in the former period our navy had 10,123 more seamen than 
France, and at the latter date the excess was 51,500. 

But we are told, that the Maritime Inscription gives to the 
French Government the right of calling upon the whole of the 
merchant seamen to serve in the imperial navy. This power 
was, however, equally possessed by the Government of Louis 


* Hansard, clxi. 1774. 


t Hansard , ib., 1789, 




104 THE THREE PANICS. [PANIC III. 

Philippe. The Maritime Inscription is an institution nearly 
two centuries old. It is a register which comprises every youth 
and man following a sea life, or employed on rivers running to 
the sea, or working in dockyards, etc., who are all liable to 
serve in the Government navy. The number of available sea¬ 
men is apt to be much exaggerated, owing to the large propor¬ 
tion of landsmen included in the Inscription. The best way of 
comparing the naval resources of the two countries is by a 
reference to the amount of their merchant shipping. England 
possesses at least four times the tonnage of France, exclusive of 
colonial shipping ; and although the ships of the latter country 
carry larger crews than those of the former, on the other hand 
the English people take more freely to the sea for boating, 
yachting, and fishing, than their neighbours. It is quite cer¬ 
tain, then, that England has four times as many sailors to draw 
on as France, and against the power of impressment possessed 
by her, we must put the ability to pay for the services of our 
seamen which is possessed by England. If France has 60,000 
merchant seamen from whence to draw by impressment the 
crews of her imperial marine, we have 240,000 to supply the 
men for the royal navy, in case of real emergency, by the 
equally sure process of voluntary enlistment for high pay.* 
Lord Hardwicke, who ought to be well informed on the sub¬ 
ject, remarked, in the course of this debate, that “it was stated 
that the French had a reserve of 60,000; but he believed it 
was known to officers of their own fleet, that not more than 
half that number was at any time available to man the navy. 
30,000 trained seamen was, however, a most formidable force, 
etc.”f But let us suppose the whole of these 30,000 men added 


* The following statement of the loss and gain by impressment, made 
by Lord Clarence Paget, shows, that it is a very unreliable mode of man¬ 
ning the navy: “ During the years 1811, 1812, and 1813, the closing 
period of the great war with France, there were pressed into the service 
29,405 men, while the number of those who deserted was 27,300—so that 
the total gain to the country, during those three years, by impressment 
was 2,105 men. But, in order to bring those men thus compulsorily into the 
service, 3,000 good sailors had been employed on shore as press-gangs. 
Therefore the country actually lost about 1,000 men during those “three 
years under the system.”— Hansard, cliv. 909. 

f Hansard , clviii. 449. 






I860.] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


105 


to the French imperial marine, nay, let ns even empty every 
merchant ship of their able-bodied crews, and suppose that 
50,000 in addition to the present 34,000 were placed at the 
service of the French Government, and it would still leave the 
number less by 1,500 than the 85,500 men that had been 
already voted by our Parliament for 1860; and we were told 
the men were pressing to enter the service faster than the 
Admiralty required them. 

That, under such circumstances, a Government should lend its 
sanction to the cry of the alarmists, and pretend to be occupied 
in securing a reserve to protect us against France, "was some¬ 
thing like an abuse of public confidence. All this costly and 
complete preparation to meet some hypothetical danger implies 
a total want of faith in those latent resources of the nation 
which patriotism would evoke in the event of a real emergency. 
It has been frequently said by those most competent to judge, 
that, in case of actual danger to our shores, the merchant 
seamen, of whom about one-third are estimated to be 
always in port, would come forward to a man for the defence 
of the country. 

The opinion of the seamen themselves on this subject was no 
doubt correctly expressed in a few words of manly common 
sense quoted by the Duke of Somerset, as the declaration of the 
sailors of Hartlepool:—They say, “We are doing well in the 
merchant service, and we do not want to be sent out to any of 
your little wars, to China or the Eiver Plate, or any of those 
places where you are always carrying on some small hostilities ; 
but when it comes to a regular European war, we will take our 
share in it with any men A* 

Such were the naval armaments of the two counrries in 1860. 
England had added to her navy since 1857 nearly as many men 
as were contained in the whole marine of France. Yet, during 
the spring and summer of this year, the cry of alarm was still 
heard, and, with a view to the greater security of our shores, 
the Eifle Corps movement was actively promoted under the 
most influential patronage. Already it was announced, that the 
numbers enrolled in the Corps amounted to 130,000, and it was 
said that the foreigner had been impressed in a salutary manner 


* Hansard, c-lviii. 444. 





100 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC III. 


by this martial demonstration. All this was, however, insuf¬ 
ficient ; and we now ajDproach the climax of the third panic in 
the gigantic project for fortifications shortly to be initiated in 
the House of Commons. 

A passing notice must, however, be taken of one or two of 
the little episodes in Parliament, which reflected the nervous 
excitement of certain classes out of doors. Mr. King-lake 
“ had been informed that great preparations were being urged 
forward for the supply of horse transports on the north coast of 
France.”* Sir Charles Napier had heard from an American 
traveller that there were 14,000 men at work in Toulon dock¬ 
yards, besides 3,000 convicts.f Both Houses of Parliament 
were simultaneously agitated upon the subject of a report which 
had appeared in the newspapers, announcing that English ship¬ 
wrights were finding employment in Cherbourg and other 
French dockyards. Numbers of artificers were crowding to the 
police magistrates to obtain passports. The subject was brought 
under the notice of the Lords by Yiscount Dungannon, and of 
the Commons by Mr. Johnstone, the latter said, “ from inform¬ 
ation he had received, there were at this moment between 1,200 
and 1,300 of our skilled artisans employed in the French dock¬ 
yards,” and he added, that “ it was a very grave matter that 
some of our best shipwrights should be employed in building 
French ships.”J Lord Clarence Paget replied that the regula¬ 
tions did not allow foreigners to work in French dockyards. 

The Duke of Somerset stated, in answer to the question in 
the Lords, that the only vessel now being built in Cherbourg 
was a transport; that so far from the French taking on fresh 
hands, several hundreds of their own workpeople had been 
lately discharged; and that the British shipwrights who had 
gone there in consequence of the statements which had ap¬ 
peared in the English newspapers, not being able to find work, 
had “ fallen into a pitiable condition, and bitterly repented their 
credulity.” § 

On the 23rd July, 1860, Lord Palmerston brought forward 
the Government measure, for “ the construction of works for the 
defence of the royal dockyards and arsenals, and of the ports 


* Hansard , clvi. 519. 

% Hansard, elix, 209. 


t Hansard, clviii. 1309. 
§ Hansard, clix. 8-14. 





THE THREE PANICS. 


107 


i860.] 

of Dover and Portland, and for the creation of a central 
arsenal/’ when he delivered what was pronounced by Mr. Ilors- 
man to be one of the most serious and alarming speeches he 
ever heard delivered by a minister of the Crown in the time of 
peace,” and which he declared he had heard with “satisfac¬ 
tion.”* This must be admitted to have been only natural, for 
Mr. Horsman found himself and his views in the ascendant. 
A Commission had been appointed (at the pressing instance, as 
he informed us, of Sir De Lacy Evans) to devise a scheme of 
fortifications, whose report, now laid before the House and 
adopted by the Government, recommended an expenditure, 
spread over a series of years, of £11,000,000, but which the 
opponents of the scheme predicted would, according to all 
analogous precedent, result in an outlay of double the 
amount. 

The most striking feature of this speech is, that it does not 
contain one syllable of allusion to the navy—for which nearly 
£13,000,000 had been voted this year—as a means of defending 
our shores. | The only supposition of a naval battle is, that it 
occurs after the successful landing of a considerable force for 
the purpose of destroying our dockyards, and “ cutting up our 
navy by the roots;” and then we are told that, if any naval 
action were to take place, whatever the success might be, “ our 
enemy would have his dockyards, arsenals, and stores to refit 
and replenish, and reconstruct his navy; whilst, with our dock¬ 
yards burnt, and our stores destroyed, we should have no means 
of refitting our navy and sending it out again to battle.”]; 


* Hansard , clx. 565. 

f If the Secretary of the Admiralty keep a private diary, there will 
be found, probably, inserted a commentary on this speech not unlike the 
following, made on a similar occasion by his predecessor in the reign of 
Charles II.:— 

“ March 22, 1667.—The Duke of York, instead of being at sea as ad¬ 
miral, is now going from port to port, as he is this day at Harwich, and 
was the other day with the king at Sheerness, and hath ordered at Ports¬ 
mouth how fortifications shall be made to oppose the enemy in case of 
invasion, which is to us a sad consideration, and shameful to the nation, 
especially for so many proud vaunts as we have made against the Dutch 
[French ?].”— Pepys 1 Diary. 


1 Hansard, clx. 25. 







108 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[panic III. 


There is then a description of our large exports and imports, 
“our 10,000,000 quarters of corn imported annually, besides 
enormous quantities of coffee, sugar, tea, and of cotton, which 
is next in importance to corn for the support of the people”; 
followed by a picture of the consequences which would result 
from “ such places as Liverpool, Bristol, Glasgow, and London, 
that is to say the Thames, being blockaded by a hostile 
force.” 

But not only is it assumed, that an enemy has landed, but 
that an army is menacing the metropolis itself, and the fortifi¬ 
cations of the dockyards are described as the “ means for the 
defence of London, because they will set free a large amount of 
force for the defence of the capital by operations in the field,” 
for it is contended that, “ if large forces are required to defend 
your dockyards, you cannot concentrate for the defence of Lon¬ 
don that amount of force which would be necessary to meet an 
invading army.” And again—“ The only defence for London 
is an army in the field; and any means which enable you to 
make that army as large as your military establishments will 
allow are directly subservient to the defence of the capital it¬ 
self.”* There is not one syllable to indicate that we had at 
that moment a fleet with 85,500 seamen, whilst, according to 
the authority of the Prime Minister himself, the French navy 
contained only 34,000 men. 

It must, however, here be stated, that Lord Palmerston 
has a peculiar theory respecting the effect of steam navigation 
on our maritime strength, which he proceeds to develop. He 
contends, that as long as the movement of ships depended on 
the chances of the weather, “ and as long as naval warfare was 
carried on by means of sailing ships, we were in a position, by 
our superior skill and aptitude for the sea and for naval combat, 
to rest upon the strength which we then had afloat.”—And he 
proceeds to say :— 

“ The same difficulties which interposed in 1804-5 to prevent 
a large army drawn up on the opposite coast of the Channel 
from crossing over to this country, continued to exist; and, 
therefore successive Governments were justified in abstaining 
from any great effort for the purpose of artificial protection to 


* Hansard , clx. 25, 26. 




I860.] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


109 


our dockyards and other vulnerable points. But the intro¬ 
duction of steam changed this state of things. The adoption 
of steam as a motive power afloat totally altered the character 
of naval warfare, and deprived us of much of the advantages 
of our insular position. Operations which, if not impossible, 
were at least extremely difficult while sailing vessels alone were 
employed, became comparatively easy the moment that steam 
was introduced ; and, in fact, as I remember Sir Robert Peel 
stating, steam had bridged the Channel, and, for the purposes 
of aggression, had almost made this country cease to be an 
island.”* 

They who have sat for the last twenty years in the House of 
Commons, have observed throughout the successive debates on 
our National Defences, the constant reiteration of the opinion, 
on the part of the present Prime Minister, that the application 
of steam to navigation has supplied greater facilities for offence 
than defence ; that it has, in fact, deprived us of our great 
bulwark, by throwing what he has repeatedly called a “ steam 
bridge ” over the Channel. It has been remarked, also, that 
many other speakers have adopted his view, at the same time, 
assigning to him the merit of its authorship. Thus, for 
instance, in the long debate on the Militia Bill of 1852, Mr. 
Walpole quoted this argument, as “ so forcibly urged, on more 
than one occasion in the course of the debate, by the noble 
member for Tiverton ” j ; and Lord Lyndhurst urged the same 
view, with a similar acknowledgment of its origin. J It would, 
however, be difficult to adduce the testimony of one eminent 
authority in favour of this opinion, whilst a host of naval 
officers and others might be quoted on the other side. Two or 
three examples must suffice :— 

Admiral Berkeley, a Lord of the Admiralty, in his evidence 
before the Committee on the Navy, in 1848, said, “I believe, 
myself, that the power which steam has given us, if we make 
use of it properly, is the best guarantee we have against in¬ 
vasion, if we choose to make use of our resources, and organise 
those resources in the best manner.” § 

Sir Thomas Hastings, President of the Commission for Coast 


* Hansard , clx. 18. t Hansard, cxx. 1178. 

% Ante , 72. § Minutds of Evidence, 3850. 




110 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[panic III. 


Defences, under Sir Robert Peel’s Government, in bis evidence 
before tbe Ordnance Committee, of 1849, exjiressed the same 
opinion, and almost in the same terms.* 

The opinion of Sir Charles Napier was thus expressed :— 
“ With regard to the effect of steam, it had been said that it 
made blockading impossible; but, on the contrary, he believed 
that steam had, for the first time, made blockading effectual; 
for with a steam fleet it would be impossible for the ships 
blockaded to escape without the knowledge of the blockading 
squadron, as they had done in former times, when they landed 
in Ireland, and when the great portion of the fleet escaped from 
Brest unknown to those who were watching them.” j 

Captain Scobell, late member for Bath, whose utterances on 
Naval questions were characterised by a robust common sense, 
stated in the House that “ he remembered being employed in 
blockading Boulogne, where the invading army of Napoleon 
was to have embarked, and his opinion was that this country 
was more vulnerable then than now, the agency of steam had 
done so much to strengthen it; for calms and fogs would have 
assisted the enemy much more then than now.” J 

Sir Morton Peto thus gives expression to the scientific view 
of the question :—“We live in eventful times. The future of 
any nation will no longer be determined by its courage alone; 
science and its practical applications will decide our future 
battles ; and surely this should not be a source of weakness, but 
of strength. We have unlimited supplies of iron and of coal; 
we have the best practical and scientific engineers. Our 
country has been the birth-place of the steam-engine itself. 
The rest of the world have copied us in its application to the 
thousand ways in which it has contributed to the advancement 
of civilisation and progress. It is a new thing that has 
happened to our country, that in naval affairs, instead of leading, 
we are taught by France and the rest of Europe.” § 

In a quotation given above, from Lord Palmerston’s speech, 
there is a very curious error in attributing to Sir Robert Peel 
an opinion on this subject the very opposite of that which he 


* Minutes of Evidence, 5021. 
+ Hansard, cxix. 1448. 


t Hansard , clx. 545. 
§ Hansard, clxii. 437 




I860.] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


Ill 


entertained. It is a singular illustration of the fallibility of 
even the best of memories, that there should have been put 
into the mouth of that minister, in perfect good faith, no doubt, 
language, respecting a “ steam bridge/’ which he emphatically 
repudiated, so long ago as 1845, when uttered by the very 
statesman who now assigned to him its authorship. The inci¬ 
dent is so curious, that, for correct illustration, the quotations 
must be given textually, and in juxtaposition :—• 

Lord Palmerston (July 30, 1845.) “In reference to steam- 
navigation, what he said was, that the progress which had been 
made had converted the ordinary means of transport into a 
steam-bridge.”* 

Sir Robert Peel (same date in reply). “ The noble lord 
(Lord Palmerston) appeared to retain the impression that our 
means of defence were rather abated by the discovery of steam- 
navigation. He was not at all prepared to admit that. He 
thought that the demonstration which we could make of our 
steam-navy was one which would surprise the world; and as 
the noble lord had spoken of steam-bridges, he would remind 
him that there were two parties who could play at making 
them.”f 

Lord Palmerston (July 23, 1860.) “And, in fact, as I re¬ 
member Sir Robert Peel stating, steam had bridged the Channel, 
and for the purpose of aggression had almost made this country 
cease to be an island.” J 

The above citations, if they do not warrant the conclusion, 
that the theory of steam-navigation having rendered our shores 
more vulnerable to attack originated exclusively with the 
present Prime Minister, prove at least, beyond dispute, that in 
the costly application of that theory to this plan of fortifications, 
he has been acting in opposition to the recorded opinions of the 
most eminent statesman, and the highest professional and prac¬ 
tical authorities of the age. 

But to return to the speech before us. There is one striking 
resemblance between all the oratorical efforts on the invasion 
question, in their total omission of all allusion to the numerical 


* Hansard , Ixxxii. 1233. t Ibid. 

% Hansard, clx. 18. 






112 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC III. 

strength, of our own forces. If the reader will take the trouble 
to refer back to the speech delivered by the noble lord on the 
30th July, 1845, when urging Sir Robert Peel’s Government to 
an increase of our armaments, it will he found that our peril 
then arose from the existence in France of an army of 
“ 340,000 men, fully equipped, including a large force of 
cavalry and artillery; and, in addition to that, 1,000,000 of the 
National Guard.”* The danger on the present occasion is owing 
to “ an army of six hundred and odd thousand men, of whom 
four hundred and odd thousand are actually under arms, and the 
remainder are merely on furlough, and can be called into the 
ranks in a fortnight.”! The million of National Guards of 
France had disappeared; but there is no allusion to the 
addition which we had in the mean time made to our own force 
of more than 200,000 volunteers and militia, besides the large 
increase of regulars. 

But this characteristic omission will be more apparent in the 
case of the navies. In 1845, we were told that the French had 
a fleet in “ commission and half commission ” equal to that of 
this country. We are now informed, that “the utmost exer¬ 
tions have been made, and still are making, to create a navy 
very nearly equal to our own—a navy which cannot be required 
for purposes of defence for France, and which, therefore, we are 
justified in looking upon as a possible antagonist we may have 
to encounter—a navy which, under present arrangements, 
would give to our neighbours the means of transporting, within 
a few hours, a large and formidable number of troops to our 
coast.” J To bring the statement, that the French Government 
had been, and still was, striving to create a navy very nearly 
equal to our own, once more to the test of figures, let us 
compare the increase which had taken place in the two navies 
in the interval between 1847, the last year of Louis Philippe’s 
reign, and 1860, the year in which this speech was made. 
The comparison is limited to the men, because the definitive 
audit of the French accounts not being yet published for 
1860, it will avoid all dispute to take the present number of 


* Ante ; p. 6. 


t Hansard , clx. 22. 
% Hansard , clx. 23. 





I860.] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


113 


French seamen on the authority of the Prime Minister at 
34,000,* although the French Estimate admits only 30,588. 


Strength of the English and French Navies in Number of Seamen } 

in the Years 1847 and 1860. 


1847. 1860. 

No. of Men. No. of Men. 

English . . 44,969 85,500 

French . . 32,169 34,000 


Increase. 

English 40,531 
French 1,831 


It will be seen, by the above figures, that whilst England 
had increased her force 40,531 men, France had augmented hers 
only 1831. If the French estimate of the number of their seamen 
be correctly given, which has not been disproved by any state¬ 
ment of facts, then the force maintained by them is actually 
less in 1860 than it ^as in 1847. Nor must it be forgotten, 
that in proposing the Navy Estimates, the Secretary of the 
Admiralty had informed us a few months before that we had 
456 steamers afloat to 244 French. It has been shown, too, 
that our dockyard expenditure for wages in 1859 was 
£1,582,112, whilst in France it amounted to £772,931, or less 
than one-half; and in proof that this activity in the Govern¬ 
ment yards had been unabated in 1860, it is only necessary to 
refer to the First Lord’s statement on the 1st May, already 
quoted,! that during the preceding eight months more men 
had been employed in our dockyards than at any previous time, 
not even excepting the period of the great war with France 
which terminated in 1815. 

It must here be mentioned, that this state of things led to the 
publication of a semi-official French pamphlet, in the summer 
of 1860, under the sanction of the Minister of State, with a 
view to expose the unprecedented and disproportionate increase 
of our navy, as compared with that of France. This pamphlet J 
contains a detailed comparison of the English and French 
naval expenditures, accompanied with elaborate statistics of 
their respective forces. The writer of these pages has, how- 


* Hansard, clxi. 1789. t Ante, p. 101. 

X The Navy Budgets of France and England . By M. Cuchuval 

Clarigny. 


I 





114 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[panto III. 


ever, preferred to rely exclusively upon official sources of infor¬ 
mation ; namely, the definitively audited accounts of France, 
and our own parliamentary reports, and the statements of our 
official men. 

Such were the comparative forces of the two countries, when 
the speech under consideration was delivered. Englishmen 
had a perfect right, if they saw in the act no derogation from 
the attitude of their fathers, who boasted of needing “ no bul¬ 
warks, no towers along the steep,” to^ensconce themselves behind 
fortifications, in addition to a fleet of more than double the 
strength of that of France. It was purely a question of security 
and national honour, and in itself was not an aggressive measure 
towards other countries. It was made an act of offence towards 
France, solely by the speech which accompanied it, and which 
was an amplification of the invasion-speeches of 1845 and 1851. 
The objects of the invaders were now more minutely described ; 
they were to make a sudden descent on our shores, to burn and 
destrov our naval arsenals, and this not with a view to con- 
quest, for the speaker “ dismissed from his mind the idea that 
any foreign power would dream of conquering this country with 
the view of permanent possession;” nor did he believe that an 
invasion would “ ever be likely to be attended with permanent 
advantage to an enemy, except in so far as it might inflict 
injury on this country.” The argument, in fact, assumed that 
we were in precisely the same state of insecurity as if our 
neighbours had been a barbarous tribe whose actions were 
inspired by mere love of vengeance and plunder, without any 
restraining forethought or calculation of consequences, and who 
afforded none of those hostages for peace which are to be found 
in the possession of great wealth, or extensive manufactures and 
commerce. 

There was a tone of assumed defencelessness on our part 
pervading the whole speech, which found repeated utterance in 
such phrases as, “ You cannot, you are not entited to rely upon 
the forbearance of a stronger neighbour,” or, “ For the sake of 
peace, it is desirable that we should not live upon forbearance, 
but that we should be able fully and effectually to defend our¬ 
selves.” The speaker then assumes that a difficulty has arisen 
with some foreign power, and says, “ With the utmost desire 
that such matters may be amicably adjusted; yet, if one country 


I860.] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


115 


is greatly the stronger, and another country greatly the weaker, 
it is very difficult for any arrangement to be made ” ; and then, 
that there may be no doubt which is the feebler party, it is 
assumed that, “the weaker power consists of a high-spirited and 
patriotic nation, with free institutions and with the popular 
feeling manifested on every occasion by means of a free press.” 
Now, if such language had been addressed to a people whose 
shores were really in danger from a more powerful neighbour, 
this would have been a legitimate appeal to their patriotism, 
but when it emanated from the Prime Minister of a nation, 
whose ability to defend its coasts was double that of its 
neighbour to assail them, such an attitude was very similar to 
what, in individual life, would be represented by a man, in 
possession of both his hands, taunting and accusing another, 
possessing but one, with the design of assaulting him. 

There was a remarkable contrast between the present speech, 
and those delivered by the same speaker in 1845 and 1851 —a 
contrast all the more significant that he was now Prime 
Minister, whereas on former occasions he spoke only as an 
opposition member of parliament; namely, that it did not 
content itself with an abstract hypothesis of a possible invasion, 
but pointed to France as the menacing cause of actual danger. 
The cry of “Wolf!” had been so repeatedly heard for fifteen 
years, that it seemed as though it was necessary not only to name 
the wolf itself, but to depict the scowling aspect and crouching 
attitude of the beast of prey. The following passage leaves no 
doubt about the quarter from whence the attack was to be ex¬ 
pected :— 

“ Now, Sir, as to the necessity for these works, I think it is 
impossible for any man to cast his eyes over the face, of 
Europe, and to see and hear what is passing without, being 
convinced that the [future is not free from danger. It is diffi¬ 
cult to say where the storm may burst; but the horizon is 
charged with clouds which betoken the possibility of a tempest. 
The Committee of course knows, that, in the main , I am speaking 
of our immediate neighbours across the Channel, and there is no use 

in disguising 


* Hansard , clx.21. 
i 2 







116 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC III. 


To appreciate fully the scope and bearing of these words, it 
is necessary to refer to the precise circumstances under which 
they were spoken. The speech was delivered on the 23rd July, 
1860. At that moment, the negociation of the details of the 
Commercial Treaty with France, upon the liberal arrangement 
of which depended the whole success of the measure, was at its 
most critical and important stage. The public mind was under 
considerable misapprehension respecting the progress of the 
measure, owing to the systematic misrepresentations which 
were promnl gated in certain political circles, and by a portion 
of the press.* The British ministry alone knew that, up to that 
time, the French Government had manifested a disposition to 
carry out the details of the Treaty with even unexpected 
liberality, and they could not have been unaware how important 
it was, at such a juncture, to preserve a conciliatory tone 
towards that Government. It was, at this critical moment, 
that the speech burst upon the negociations in Paris. Had its 
object been to place the British Commissioners at the greatest 
possible disadvantage, it could not have more effectually accom¬ 
plished the purpose. It cut the ground from under their feet, 
in so far as the French Government had been actuated by the 
political motives (apart from politico-economical considerations) of 
seeking to strengthen the friendly relations of the two countries 
as represented by their governments. This plea of high state- 
policy, with which the Emperor’s government had met the com¬ 
plaints of the powerful interests which believed themselves com¬ 
promised by the Treaty, was in a moment silenced and turned 
against itself. The offensive passages in the speech were 
instantly transferred to the pages of the protectionist organs, 
accompanied with loud expostulations addressed to their own 
government: “ You are sacrificing us,” they said, “ in the hope 
of conciliating the political alliance of our ancient rival; and 
now, behold the reward you are receiving at the hands of the 


* In justice to the newspaper press, which almost universally took a 
hopeful view of the Treaty, and gave a generous support to the negocia¬ 
tions, the notorious exception must be mentioned. The Times persisted 
in its attacks and misrepresentations, until silenced by the all but unani¬ 
mous expression of opinion on the part of the manufacturing and com¬ 
mercial community in favour of the Treaty. 




THE THREE PANICS. 


I860.] 


117 


Prime Minister of England.” These taunts resounded in the 
salons of the enlightened Minister of Commerce, and murmurs 
were heard even in the palace itself. A profound sensation was 
produced among all classes by this speech ; and no other words 
could adequately express the emotions experienced by the 
French negociators, but astonishment and indignation. Had 
the Emperor seized the occasion for instantly suspending the 
negociations, he would have undoubtedly performed a most 
popular part; but on this, as on other occasions, his habitual 
calmness and self-mastery prevailed, and to these qualities 
must be mainly attributed the successful issue of the Treaty. 

It is impossible to construct any theory of motives to account 
for this speech, consistent with a wise or serious statesmanship, 
and it probably met with the only appropriate commentary, 
in the following remarks which fell from Mr. Bernal 
Osborne:— 

“ At the commencement of the session, I gave my humble 
support to a Commercial Treaty with France, under the idea 
that I was promoting good and substantial relations with that 
country. The noble lord (Lord Palmerston) has told us that 
we should not speak of this Treaty with levity ; but his actions 
are inconsistent with his words, for the resolution before us is 
the oddest sequel imaginable to a Commercial Treaty. After 
taking off all the duties on French manufactures, we are asked 
to vote nominally £9,000,000, though I believe it will ulti¬ 
mately be nearer £20,000,000, for the construction of defences 
to keep out our friends and customers. Why, Sir, if this was 
not an expensive amusement, it would be the most ludicrous 
proceeding ever proposed to a deliberative assembly.” * 

This project was voted by the House on the 2nd August, after a 
few hours’ debate, in which scarcely any of the leading members 
spoke. Mr. Sidney Herbert, who took a prominent part in the 
discussion, declared that it was unwise in England “ to leave a 
great temptation—to leave her vast property and her reputation 
at stake, and at the mercy of any nation which may choose to 
send an expedition in consequence of some diplomatic quarrel” ; f 
—totally oblivious of the 456 Government steamers, the 85,500 



% 


f Hansard , ib. 506. 


* Hansard, clx. 553. 




lid THE THREE PANICS* [PANIC lib 

seamen, and upwards of 300,000 armed men, including volun¬ 
teers, then ready to meet an invading enemy !* This was 
spoken ten days after the delivery of the Prime Minister’s 
speech, which had, of course, produced its natural effect out of 
doors, and to which Mr. Herbert could thus triumphantly 
appeal, in replying to Mr. Bright* 

“ Is it not a fact, I ask him, that the whole nation is full of 
alarm and suspicion ? The people feel that they ought to obtain 
security at any price. We have, therefore, spent a large sum 
in putting our stores and munitions of war in order. We have 
an increase of the army—not a large increase, it is true, but 
still an increase. All these things are cheerfully borne by the 
people) and more is called for—more, perhaps, than the Govern¬ 
ment are willing to do. Is not that an indication that there 
must, in the minds of an immense majority of the people, be 
some cause for alarm ? The country feels that it is not in a 
proper state of defence, and that, if we deal with the question 
at all, we should deal with the whole of it if we can. Such 
are the feelings which I believe animate the public out of 
doors. ”f 

This is a fair illustration of the manner in which panics are 
created and sustained. A Government proposes a large expen¬ 
diture for armaments, on the plea that France is making vast 
warlike preparations ; and the public, being thereby impressed 
with a sense of impending danger, takes up the cry of alarm, 
when the Minister quotes the echo of his own voice as a justifi¬ 
cation of his policy, and a sufficient answer to all opponents. 
This mode of argument was thus commented upon on a subse¬ 
quent occasion by Mr. Bright, when replying to another 
speaker:— 

“ But he knows perfectly well that what is called the country 
must necessarily take its opinions at second-hand. Manu¬ 
facturers, farmers, professional men, shopkeepers, artisans, and 


* With a similar obliviousness of our own armaments, the Fortifications 
Bill was thus greeted by the Earl of Ellenborough in the Lords :—“ I have, 
during the last thirteen years, endeavoured to draw the attention of this 
House and the country to the almost defenceless state of the realm, 
earnestly desiring that we should not remain unarmed in the midst of an 
armed world.”— Hansard, clx. 1563. 

t Hansard, clx. 502. 




I860*] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


119 


labourers do not coil over these blue-books of ours, and read the 
accounts minutely given in the French votes. They know very 
little of this. They take their opinions from what is stated in 
this House and in the public press. And, of course, when there 
are men of the high position of the noble lord at the head of 
the Government and others associated with him, who have been 
in the service of the country for twenty, thirty, or forty years, 
it is only reasonable that the opinions which they express, and 
the statements which are made in their hearing, but which they 
do not take the trouble to contradict, should sink into the minds 
of the people, and become with them a fixed belief, although 
founded upon no knowledge whatever.”* 

This gigantic scheme of fortification* is without a parallel in 
any single project of the kind ; and, judging by the analogy of 
Keyham and the Channel Islands, it may be predicted that, if 
allowed to go on, it will eventually involve an expenditure of 
double the amount of the original estimate. In the course of 
the debate Mr. Sidney Herbert stated that “ it was chiefly on 
the advice of Sir Howard Douglas that the Government acted 
in making the proposition they now made.”f How it is known 
that this officer entertained to the last a faith in large wooden 
ships, and even believed that sailing line-of-battle ships would 
play a part in future naval wars. He could form no idea of 
Portsmouth, Plymouth, and the other dockyards, but that which 
was suggested by the past appearance of their harbours, crowded 
with wooden vessels, some in commission or half commission, 
some afloat in ordinary, and others in process of construction, 
with timber enough in store for two or three years’ consump¬ 
tion, at the rate of thirty or forty thousand loads a-year. The 
scheme of fortifications approved by him might be very con¬ 
sistent with these views. 

But if in accordance with the advice of Sir "William Arm- 


* Hansard , elxi. 1785. 

t Hansard, clx. 562. It is one of the evils of our day that men are 
often retained in the direction of great national undertakings long beyond 
the period of life when they are considered eligible for employment in 
conducting private concerns.—Sir Howard Douglas was, when consulted by 
the Government on this occasion, in his 83rd year ; an age when men may 
be said to live only in the past, and to retain, for the affairs of this life, 
scarcely any interest in the future. 




120 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC III. 


strong, Mr. Fairbairn, Sir Morton Peto, and other high author¬ 
ities, on whose engineering skill the Government profess to 
rely, our ships of war are henceforth constructed entirely of 
iron (not wood cased in iron), and if they are built, as they will 
be if the country be wise, by contract in private yards, the 
“ roots ” of our navy will henceforth be on the Clyde, the 
Thames, the Mersey, and the Tyne, and not in Portsmouth or 
Plymouth. As for repairs, a vessel built wholly of iron four or 
five inches thick will, like an iron bridge, be practically inde¬ 
structible. With railroads running from the interior into all 
our dockyards, perishable stores for the navy may be kept 
at the Tower, Weedon, or other inland depots. It is, be¬ 
sides, notorious that g^pat waste and abuse of various kinds 
arise from the unnecessarily large amount of these stores kept 
on hand. 

With the revolution thus glanced at now going on in naval 
armaments, it is possible that when the grand scheme of fortifi¬ 
cations for Portsmouth, extending to the South Downs, are 
complete, to prevent the “cradle of our navy from being 
burnt and destroyed/’ an enemy will find very few combustible 
materials in that arsenal except the coal. Our dockyards will 
then possess, comparatively, only a traditional importance, unless, 
indeed, we adopt the dishonouring theory that our fleets 
require fortified places in which to take refuge from an 
enemy. 

The first proof to be offered by the Government, to whatever 
party it may belong, of the triumph of common sense in the 
conduct of our national affairs, will be the suspension of this 
panic-begotten scheme. 

The speech of the Premier was calculated to give a renewed 
impulse to the agitation out of doors; but, owing to a cause 
which will be immediately explained, a reaction was taking 
place on the invasion question in the manufacturing districts, 
and the most exciting of the martial demonstrations which were 
witnessed during the ensuing autumn and winter occurred in 
obscure agricultural places.* 


* The following specimen will suffice to recall to the reader’s recollec¬ 
tion the scenes that were passing at the close of 1860 :— 

“ Dinner to Major Watlington, M.P. for South Essex.— On Wednesday 



I860.] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


121 


During the negotiation of the details of the French commer¬ 
cial treaty, which extended over nearly the whole of 1860, 
deputations from our manufacturing districts, and from the 
metropolis, paid repeated visits to Paris, to afford information to 
the British Commissioners respecting their various productions. 
These intelligent capitalists returned to England impressed 
with the conviction that a great commercial revolution was 
being inaugurated in France ; and this conviction found expres¬ 
sion in the reports which the deputations made to their con¬ 
stituents. A natural revulsion from the state of panic followed. 
Deflecting men began to ask themselves if it could be possible 
that the most logical people were contemplating at the same 
time a policy of free trade and of unprovoked hostile aggres¬ 
sion,—that the Emperor, whose great intelligence no one dis¬ 
puted, could really be aiming at pursuing, in his own person, 
the incompatible careers of the first Napoleon and Sir Bobert 
Peel! 

But the warning voice of the Prime Minister, which still 
rang in the public ear, coupled with the gigantic project of 
fortifications, made even intelligent men pause in their final 
judgment upon the designs of the ruler of France. This con¬ 
flict of jmblic opinion induced several members of parliament to 
institute a personal inquiry into the naval preparations of 
France. Mr. Dalglish, M.P., for Glasgow, who had served on 


afternoon, Major J. W. Perry Watlington, M.P., was entertained at dinner 
at Harlow Bush House by the members of the B troop of West Essex 
Feomanry Cavalry, on his promotion from the rank of captain of the 
troop to the rank of major of the regiment. Major Watlington having 
thanked the company for the compliment paid him, and made some 
remarks regarding the character of the yeomanry cavalry and the volun¬ 
teer rifle movement, proceeded to say, if this country was in danger it 
would be necessary to make preparation ; but when such a man as Lord 
Palmerston, who had the command of all the resources of knowledge and 
information to enable him to know correctly the state of the pulse of the 
Emperor of the French, and tell rightly to what end each pulsation 
of that pulse tended, asked the House of Commons to grant millions 
for our defence in fortifications — when he pointed to the other side 
of the Channel, and held the Emperor of the French up as the bug¬ 
bear, then it would be positive madness to doubt there was danger, 
and it would be culpable negligence not to be prepared for it. (Hear, 
hear.)” 



122 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[panic III. 


a Commission * for inquiring into the management of the dock¬ 
yards, visited France to examine the system of government 
accounts, and to inform himself as to the progress making in 
her naval armaments ; and he took an opportunity of saying in 
the House, that, “ having been to Toulon and Cherbourg, 
within the last fortnight, he could assure the hon. gentleman, 
the member for Norfolk, who appeared not to have got over the 
panic about a French invasion, that all his fears were ground¬ 
less, so far as the preparations connected w T ith shipbuilding, in 
those quarters were concerned.” f Sir Morton Peto, who had 
been largely connected with industrial undertakings in that 
country, despatched an intelligent agent to report to him the 
state of its various dockyards. Every facility for these inves¬ 
tigations was afforded by the French Government; and the re¬ 
sult was invariably to disprove the statements of the alarmists, 
and to corroborate the accounts contained in the semi-official 
pamphlet of M. Cucheval Clarigny. 

Mr. Lindsay, M.P. for Sunderland, also visited Paris, and 
sought an interview with the Minister of Marine, to obtain in¬ 
formation respecting the actual state of the French navy, and 
he was so convinced, by the frank and unreserved explanations 
of that Minister, of the erroneous impression which prevailed in 
England, that he comunicated the information, in the first place, 
by letter, to Lord Clarence Paget, and afterwards to the House 


* This Commission reported as follows :— 

The Royal Commission, appointed in 1860, to inquire into the manage¬ 
ment of the dockyards, report that the control and management of dock¬ 
yards are inefficient from the following causes :— 

1. The constitution of the Board of Admiralty. 

2. The defective organisation of the subordinate departments. 

3. The want of clear and well-defined responsibility. 

4. The absence of any means, both now and in times past, of effectually 
checking expenditure, from the want of accurate accounts. 

“ The want of accurate accounts,” seems to be a chronic malady at the 
Admiralty, if we may judge by the following penitent confession of the 
quaint Secretary, in the time of Charles II.:— 

“ IVov. 10,1666.—The Parliament did fall foul of our accounts again 
yesterday : and we must arme to have them examined, which I am sorry 
for; it will bring great trouble to me, and shame to the office.”— Pepys' 
Diary. t Hansard , clxii. 465. 



THE THREE PANICS. 


123 


I860.] 

of Commons, soon after the opening of the session. It seems 
from the following extract from his speech, that the French 
Minister, imitating the example of his predecessor, M. Ducos, in 
1853, invited our Secretary of the Admiralty (hut in vain) to 
make a personal inspection of the French dockyards :— 

“ The Minister of Marine was anxious that the feeling of 
alarm in England on that subject should be got rid of. He 
said ‘ I have shown you everything; I have given you official 
documents; I will do more if you desire. Will you go and 
visit our dockyards and arsenals ? I will send a gentleman 
with you, who will throw open everything to you, and you may 
see with your own eyes everything/ He (Mr. Lindsay) de¬ 
clined, saying he was tired of wandering about; but the state¬ 
ment which he had received, confirmed by these books, was so 
different from what was commonly believed, that he had sent 
the figures of the Minister of Marine, to his noble friend the 
Secretary of the Admiralty, and extended to him the invitation 
of the Minister of Marine to visit the French dockyards and 
arsenals. He had received a reply, in which the noble lord 
pleaded want of time and pressing engagements, but still 
seemed to entertain doubts as to the accuracy of the state¬ 
ments.” * 

On the 11th March, 1861, the Secretary of the Admiralty 
introduced the Navy Estimates for the ensuing year. He 
stated, “ that in consequence of the termination of the China 
war, the number of seamen actually borne in the previous year, 
had not exceeded 81,100, being 4,400 less than the 85,500 
voted; and he now asked for 78,200, which he considered to be 
only a reduction of 2,900 upon the force of the previous year. 
“ But,” he added, “ the House would be glad to hear that there 
was a force of something like 25,000 reserves, available at a 
moment’s notice if an emergency should make it necessary to 
man a large fleet.” 

With respect to ships, he proceeded, “We have expended 
during the present year, or, at least, shall have expended by the 
end of the month, no less than 80,000 loads of timber—more 
than double the ordinary rate of consumption,” and he laid 
before the House the result in vessels : “We have built during 


Hansard, clxi. 1147. 




124 


THE THltEE PANICS. 


[PANIC III. 

this year 9,075 tons of line-of-battle ships, 12,189 tons of 
frigates, 4,138 tons of corvettes, 6,367 tons of sloops, 1,409 
tons of gun and despatch vessels, and 102 tons of gun-boats, 
making a total of 33,280 tons.” He announced that for the 
ensuing year it was the intention of the Government to confine 
themselves to the construction of frigates and smaller vessels, 
adding, “ I may further observe, that so far as large vessels are 
concerned, we are in a very satisfactory position.” * At a sub¬ 
sequent stage of these naval discussions, he defined more clearly 
this position by a comparison with other countries, showing 
that we had seventeen more of these large ships (besides block- 
ships) than all the rest of the world—“We have,” he said, 
“ 67 line-of-battle ships built or building. France has 37, 
Spain 3, Russia 9, and Italy 1, making 50.” f The nine coast¬ 
guard block-ships have again passed entirely into oblivion ! 

Bearing in mind, that this prodigious increase in large 
wooden vessels had been going on after actual experiment had 
verified the success of iron-cased batteries in resisting com¬ 
bustible shells, it is really a waste almost unparalleled for reck¬ 
lessness and magnitude. It may be illustrated in private life, 
by the supposition that a large proprietor of stage-coaches 
doubled his stock of vehicles and horses at the very time when 
the locomotive and the railroad had entered into successful 
competition with the traffic of the turnpike-roads ! A reaction 
against this policy now manifested itself in the very able 
opposition speeches delivered by Mr. Baxter, Mr. Lindsay, and 
Mr. Bright. 

Lord Palmerston took a part in the debate. “The French,” 
he said, “ make no secret of their preparations; but when some 
well-intentioned gentleman asks them if they really mean to 
invade this country, if they really have any hostile intentions 
towards us, of course, they say ‘ Not the least in the world,’ their 
feeling is one of perfect sympathy and friendship with us, and 
that all their preparations are for their own self-advancement.” J 
And, again, “ Really, Sir, it is shutting one’s eyes to notorious 
facts, to go on contending that the policy of France of which 
I certainly do not complain—has not for a great length of time 


* Hansard , clxi. 1747. f Hansard, clxii. 442. 

X Hansard, clxi. 1791. 




I860.] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


125 


been to get up a navy which shall be equal, if not superior, to 
our own.”* 

For the last occasion let us bring this statement that the 
b rench had lor a long time been trying to be our equals, if not 
superiors, at sea, to the test of figures—not French, but British 
figures. In this very debate, both Lord Palmerston and Lord 
Clarence Paget give the French naval force at 34,000 seamen, 
which shall be accepted as correct, though the French estimate 
is under 31,000. The Secretary of the Admiralty had, just 
before the Premier spoke, proposed a vote of 78,200 men for 
our navy for 1861. Now let the reader turn once more to the 
table in the first page, and he will seek in vain for any year, 
except 1859 and 1860, when the same noble lord was Prime 
Minister, when our force was double that of France, or even 
approached to such a disproportionate number. And it must be 
remembered, that the French consider that the reserve of 25,000 
brings our force up to 100,000 men. 

But, in order to test the statement, that France had been 
trying to get up a navy equal to our own by a comparison of 
ships as well as men, the following extract is given from the 
speech, delivered the same evening by the Secretary of the 
Admiralty :— 

“ He assumed that hon. gentlemen would accept the statement 
of the British navy he had laid before them as correct, and that 
showed that we had 53 screw line-of-battle ships afloat and 14 
building and converting, making a total of 67. The French had 
35 afloat and two building, making a total of 37. We had 
31 screw and 9 paddle frigates afloat and 12 building, making 
a total of 52 ; the French had 21 screw and 18 paddle frigates 
afloat and 8 building, making a total of 47. He did not think 
that the discussion had extended to the smaller classes of steam¬ 
ships; but including them, the French had 266 vessels afloat 
and 61 building, making a total of 327 ; while we had 505 
afloat and 57 building, making a total of 562.” f 

Now let us take, for comparison, the large ships ; for our im¬ 
mense superiority in smaller vessels has been admitted from the 
first. * The constant cry of alarm has been founded on the asser- 


* Hansard , clxi. 1788. 


f Hansard , ib. 1773 





126 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC III. 


tion that France was attempting to rival us in ships of the line. 
The date at which we have now arrived, and when the speech 
from which the above extract is given was delivered, is the 11th 
March, 1861. It is here said, that France has thirty-seven line- 
of-battle ships built and building. On the 18th May, 1857, 
nearly four years previously, Sir Charles Wood, then First 
Lord, stated that France had forty liners built and building.* 
The same number is given for 1858 in the Report already 
quoted, presented to Parliament by Lord Derby's Government.f 
And on the 25th February, 1859, the country was startled by 
the statement of Sir John Pakington, that England and France 
were on an equality of twenty-nine J each “ completed ” ships of 
the line. What, then, has been the progress made by the 
French in nearly four years, during which we had the great 
invasion-speeches of Lord Lyndhurst, and Mr. Horsman, the 
almost incessant agitation of Sir Charles Napier, the rifle corps 
movement, the unparalleled expenditure in the dockyards, the 
gigantic fortification scheme, and all on the pretext that France 
was making great efforts to rival us at sea P Why,—it turns 
out, on the authority of our own Government, that France had 
fewer line-of-battle ships in 1861 than she was alleged to possess 
in 1857 ; she had forty built and building in 1857, and thirty- 
seven in 1861, or less by three;—the French Government, be it 
remembered, state officially their number to be only thirty-five. 
Our own liners, which were fifty in 1857, were now sixty-seven 
in 1861 (besides the block-ships), being an increase of seventeen. 
The number of French frigates is given at forty-seven in 1861, 
and they were stated by Sir John Pakington, in 1859, at forty- 
six^ being an increase of one only in two years. Our own 
frigates were put down at thirty-four in 1859, || and fifty-two in 
1861, being an increase of eighteen. 

It would be a waste of the reader’s time and patience to offer 
any further evidence in a case which, having been subjected to 
so many tests, is at last demonstrated to be utterly groundless 
on the authority of British officials and our own public docu¬ 
ments. 

In the above quotation from Lord Palmerston’s speech, the 


* Ante, 44. f Parliamentary Paper, 182 1859, p. 16. 

$ Ante } 55. § Ante , 56. || Ibid. 




1861.] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


127 


allegation, that the French had for a long time been trying to 
equal or surpass us at sea, is accompanied with the remark, “ of 
which I certainly do not complain.” If such a design on tho 
part of the French Government really did exist (which has been 
disproved), it would be a matter of grave concern, and even of com- 
plaint, to the tax-paying* people of this country :—for with what 
legitimate or peaceful object could that Government be seeking 
to disturb the immemorial relations which England and France 
have borne to each other as maritime powers ? 

France possesses less than a fourth of our mercantile marine ; 
she has not, perhaps, the hundredth part of our possessions to 
defend beyond the seas. She has more than double our mili¬ 
tary force; and whilst her land frontier gives her access to the 
Continent, and thereby to the whole world, we have no means 
of communication with any other country but by water. She 
has, therefore, no necessity for, and no legitimate pretensions to, 
an equality with us at sea ; nor is there in her history any pre¬ 
cedent for such a policy. If, under such circumstances, the 
present French ruler attempted for the first time to equal if not 
surpass us in naval armaments, the reasonable conclusion would 
be, that either he had some sinister purpose in view, or that he 
was a rash and unreflecting, and therefore a dangerous neigh¬ 
bour. If, after the offer of frank explanations on our part, with 
a view to avert so irrational a waste, that ruler persisted in his 
extraordinary preparations, there is no amount of expenditure 
which this country would not bear to maintain our due supe¬ 
riority at sea. But such a state of things would be accompanied 
with a sense of grievance; and it would make it quite incon¬ 
sistent with all serious statesmanship to attempt to unite the 
two Governments in alliances for peace or war in other parts of 
the world, until the vital question respecting our own security 
at home had received a better solution than is offered by the 
maintenance of a war-establishment to protect us from an 
invasion by a so-called friend and ally. 

The reaction which had taken place in intelligent minds 
against our injudicious naval armaments found expression in the 
House on the 11th April, 1861, when Mr. Lindsay, after an 
able speech, carried a resolution for putting an end to the 
further construction of large wooden vessels. The speech of 
Sir Morton Peto in support of this measure contains much 


128 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC III. 


valuable advice for the guidance of Government in iron ship¬ 
building, and Sir Joseph Paxton and Mr. Dalglish spoke with 
practical force for the motion. Not one word could be said, in 
any quarter, in behalf of wooden ships of the line, and a pledge 
was extorted from Government that no more of these vessels 
should be built, and that those still on the stocks should remain 
unfinished, thus tacitly admitting that the immense fleet of 
line-of-battle ships now afloat were worse than useless, and 
that if they had not been built, under the excitement of the 
panic, they would not now have been ordered to be constructed. 
This might be inferred from the remark which fell from Captain 
Jervis. “ The shell/’ said he, “ now acted as a mine ; it burst 
in passing through the side of the vessel, and would so shatter 
it that wooden line-of-battle ships would be nothing better than 
mere slaughter-houses.”* In fact, it is doubted by intelligent 
naval authorities whether, in case of a war between two mari¬ 
time powers, wooden ships of the line would be ever subjected 
to che fire of modern shell guns. 

We now arrive at the last, and not the least, characteristic 
scene of the third panic. 

On the 31st May, 1861, Sir John Pakington rose in the 
House, and addressing the Speaker said, “ Sir, I now rise to call 
attention to a subject, the importance of which no one will deny. 

I have received information with respect to the French Go¬ 
vernment, in building armour-covered ships, to which I think 
it my duty to call the attention of the House and of her 
Majesty’s Government without any loss of time.” The right 
hon. gentleman then proceeded to say, that he was about to, 
make his important statement on the authority of a British 
naval officer of high professional reputation, who, during the 
last three weeks had visited all the French ports and arsenals 
with the exception of Toulon; but he weakened the zest of the 
coming disclosure, by adding that Admiral Elliot did not wish 
to be under the suspicion of having acted as a spy :—“ I should, 
therefore,” said the speaker, “ state that whatever information 
he has obtained was obtained in an open manner, and he visited 
the French dockyards with the advantage of having received 
the permission of the Minister of Marine. [Mr. Lindsay ; 


Hansard, clxii. 460. 




1861.] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


129 


hear, hear !] I understand the motive of that cheer, and it is 
only due to the French Government to state that on the part of 
die French Admiralty there has been nothing like any intention 
to conceal its preparations.” There is a curious resemblance, in 
ilie tone of this speech, to that which was delivered in moving 
the Havy Estimates of 1859 the same disavowal of the idea 
oi alarming; the like absence of any exclusive information ; and 
yet the apparent disposition to invest the whole proceeding 
with the character of a revelation. “ I have no wish,” he said, 
“ toyxcite alarm by making this statement. I make it, because 
I think it my duty to communicate to the Government and the 
House, in this public manner, information of so startling a 
character.” 

The statement thus heralded was, that the French were pre¬ 
paring to build fifteen armour-plated ships, besides nine gun¬ 
boats, and floating batteries. There was not a word of informa¬ 
tion as to the precise stages in which these twenty-four vessels 
and batteries had been found ; it was admitted that some (it was 
not said how many) “were only lately laid down.” Lord 
Clarence Paget* spoke subsequently of nine having, during the 
last few months, been “ laid down, or prepared to be laid down” ; 
and, on the same occasion, Lord Palmerstonf said the French 
Government were “ beginning ” to lay them down. Ho test of 
accuracy can be applied to the vague statements respecting 
those projected vessels. But the allusion to the Magenta 
and Solferino, two ships which everybody knew to be building 
as the companions to La Gloire, is more precise. “ These two 
vessels,” said the right hon. gentleman, “ are to be launched 
the ensuing month, and to be added immediately to the strength 
of the French navy.” At the time when these pages are going 
to press (March, 1862), these ships are still unfinished, and are 
expected to remain so for several months. Throwing aside all 
dependence on the wooden fleets, which the Admiralty had just 
completed, he proceeded, for the second time, to proclaim the 
danger of French maritime ascendancy :— 

“ Why are these preparations being made in France P I will 
not enter into the motives by which the French Government 
may be influenced in making such efforts. Every one is able to 


* Hansard , clxiii., 425. 


K 


t Hansard, ib., 535. 





130 


THE THREE PANTOS. 


[PANIC III. 


judge for himself for what ultimate end these preparations are 
intended. The point to which I invite attention is, that what¬ 
ever may be the motive of France, the practical result is that 
we are rapidly becoming the second maritime power of Europe. 
It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of this statement. 
Is it true, or is it not true ? If it be true, what are the inten¬ 
tions of the Government.” * 

Admiral Walcott confirmed the statement of the preceding 
speaker, and said, “he felt quite convinced that a neighbouring 
country was at that moment in command of a most formidable 
number of iron-cased ships.” And Sir James Elphinstone, also 
a naval officer, followed in the same strain, declaring the report 
they had just heard “ ought justly to alarm the Government 
and people of this country.” 

It is a curious feature in this discussion, that the alarm was 
chiefly confined to the naval officers, whilst those members who 
resisted, what Mr. Dalglish designated the “ attempt that had 
been made by the right hon. member for Droitwicli, to startle 
the country ” represented precisely those constituencies whose 
interests would be the most compromised by the loss of the 
protection which our navy is designed to afford. Mr. Lindsay 
(Sunderland), Mr. Dalglish (Glasgow), and Mr. Baxter 
(Dundee), who had spoken previously, all represent important 
commercial sea-ports. 

But to return to the question put by Sir John Pakington— 
“ Why are these preparations being made in France ” P There was 
not one of his audience so competent to answer this question as 
the right hon. gentleman himself: for when he was First Lord of 
the Admiralty, he laid on the table of the House, on the 4th 
April, 1859, that Beport on “ The Comparative State of the 
Havies of England and France,” to which allusion has been so 
frequently made, drawn up by his own confidential officials for 
the special information of the Government, in which the fol¬ 
lowing passage occurs, with reference to the future policy of the 
French Government:— 

“ It is stated that these iron-sided ships, of which two are 
more than half completed, will be substituted for iine-of-battle 
ships ; their timbers are of the scantling of a three decker; 


* Hansard, clxiii. 417. 



THE THREE PANICS. 


131 


1861.] 

they are to have thirty-six heavy guns, most of them rifled 
50-pounders, which will throw an 801b. hollow percussion shot; 
they will be cased with iron ; and so convinced do naval men seem 
to be in France of the irresistible qualities of these ships , that they 
are of opinion that no more ships of the line will be laid down , and 
that in ten years that class of vessels will have become obsolete .” * 

With this document in his hand, the right hon. gentleman 
commenced, in 1859, with frantic haste, the reconstruction of 
our wooden navy, which was carried on still more frantically 
by his successor, notwithstanding that the Report of 1859 in¬ 
formed them that “no line-of-battle ship had been laid down 
since 1856, in France, and there had not been a single three- 
decker on the stocks since that year.” f And now, on the 31st 
May, 1861, when, as Mr. Lindsay stated in the course of this 
debate, England possessed a greater number of efficient steam¬ 
ships of war than all Europe, and when the Secretary of the 
Navy, himself, admitted we had seventeen more line-of-battle 
ships than all the rest of the world (besides the nine block- 
ships), J the House was startled with the declaration that we 
were rapidly becoming the second maritime power of Europe, 
because France had one iron-clad frigate (La Gloire) at sea, 
whilst our much more powerful ship, the Warrior , still wanted 
a few months for completion ! 

How, let us see whether France had taken any clandestine or 
precipitate steps to justify her being teased and worried by 
such demonstrations as these : for it must not be supposed that 
the sensibilities of the French people are not wounded § by 


* Parliamentary Paper, No. 182—1859, p. 15. f Ibid, p. 19. 

d Hansard , clxii. 442. 

§ The following is extracted from an article on this subject in the 
Journal des Debats :—“ I s there not something calculated to try the 
patience of a less exci table people than ours, to find ourselves constantly 
denounced as plotting an invasion of England—and denounced by whom ? 
By those whom we have not invaded—by those who for three centuries 
have hired all the coalitions formed against us—by those who for three 
centuries have always marched in the front ranks of the invaders of our 
national territory. Is there nothing calculated to wound the just pride of 
a people, not wanting in self respect, to find ourselves incessantly called to 
account respecting our navy—and by whom 1 By those who maintain 
upwards of 80,000 men in active service, whilst our fleet does not contain, 
more than 35,000—by those who are actually expending, on an average, 

R 2 




132 


THE THTtEE PANICS. 


[panic III. 


these imputations of sinister designs, reiterated by members 
of parliament who have filled the highest public offices. The 
value and efficiency of iron-cased vessels were proved (as will 
be seen immediately) to the knowledge of both England and 
France in 1854. England immediately possessed herself of 
double the number of iron-cased floating batteries built by 
France. The keel of the first sea-going frigate of this class, 
La Gloire, was laid down by the French Government in June, 
1858. In the parliamentary report, dated January 6th, 1859, 
so frequently quoted, it is stated that this vessel is half com¬ 
pleted. She made her first trial trip in August, 1860. And 
she was the only completed iron-clad sea-going vessel possessed 
by France on the 31 st May , 1861, when Sir John Pakington 
made his startling statement to the House, and when terrified 
admirals talked of her possessing a “most formidable number” 
of these ships. There is certainly nothing in these facts to 
warrant the suspicion that our neighbours were endeavouring 
to steal a march on us in the construction of an iron fleet. 
Three years in the acquisition of only one sea-going iron-cased 
ship is surely a leisurely rate of progress, with which even our 
Admiralty might have kept pace ! 

As there has been a systematic, and to some extent a suc¬ 
cessful, effort made by the invasionists to keep alive the panic, 
by attributing to the French Government secret and extensive 
preparations of iron-clad vessels, it will be well, before con¬ 
cluding, to add a few words respecting the origin and progress 
of this innovation in ship-building. 

More than fifteen years ago, when the mode of projecting 
combustible shells horizontally was adopted, it was foreseen that 
the nature of maritime warfare would be entirely changed. In 
his evidence before the Ordnance Committee, of 1849, Sir 
Thomas Hastings* * said, that in consequence of the adoption of 
PaixhaiTs guns, in case of a naval action between two fleets, 
“instead of lasting ten hours, its duration will be nearer ten 
minutes.” Here, then, was a clear necessity for some contri¬ 
vance to meet this new danger : and the objects to be aimed at 


£12,000,000 sterling annually on their navy ; whilst for several years we 
have been spending, on an average, 125,000,000f., or £5, 000,000 sterling’ 

* Minutes , 5023. 





1861 .] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


133 


in clothing the ships’ sides with iron armour, are very clearly 
defined in the following extract from a Lecture by Mr. Heed, 
formerly of Her Majesty’s Dockyard, at Portsmouth, and now 
editor of the Mechanics’ Magazine :— 

“It is time that all those who concern themselves with this 
great question of how iron may best be rendered available for 
the defence of ships’ sides, should recur to the circumstance 
which gave rise to it, and to ‘the true end to be at present 
attained. That circumstance, undoubtedly, was the introduc¬ 
tion of Paixhan’s shells into naval warfare ; and the end desired 
is the application of means by which the entrance of those 
terrible missiles through the side of a ship may be avoided. 
The attainment of this end would leave us subject only to the 
entrance of solid shot, to which all our ships were exposed 
during the wars in which we won our supremacy, and from 
which no practical system of iron-plating can at present be ex¬ 
pected to save us. The attempt to build ships which shall be 
proof to solid shot—at least, to wrought-iron solid shot—is an 
altogether illusory one; and such ships are not urgently re¬ 
quired. It is as a defence against shells, and hollow charged 
projectiles generally, and against these only, that iron plating 
can yet be made available. By applying iron of very great 
thickness, between wind and water, we may reduce the liability 
to injury by shot at that important part, and it may be well to 
do this ; but if the upper works are made shell-proof, we can 
expect no more.”—p. 21. 

The first trial in actual combat of these destructive missiles 
was at Sinope, November 20th, 1853, when the Turkish 
squadron was attacked by a Russian fleet, and when “ their whole 
force of fourteen ships was, to a great extent, silenced in a few 
minutes, and utterly crushed in little more than an hour.” * 
The Russians were well supplied with shell guns, while the 
Turks had nothing more effective than 24-p>ounders. During 
the progress of the Crimean war, an opportunity was afforded 
to our fleet of experiencing the effects of shells in the attack on 
the forts of Sebastopol, when some of our vessels were severely 
injured; and when the whole affair, which was lost sight of in 
face of the more absorbing operations on shore, was viewed 


* Lecture, by Mr. E. J. Reed, p. 13. 




134 


THE THREE PAKICS. 


[PANIC III. 

with even less satisfaction by our navy than by the public. It 
was during this war, too, that the first trial of iron-clad 
batteries was witnessed at Ivinburn. Our own batteries arrived 
too late, but those of our allies reached the scene in time to 
take a part in the siege. And Sir Janies Elphinstone, a prac¬ 
tical authority on naval subjects, said, “ When the French 
batteries, which had fortunately arrived, got an opportunity of 
acting at Kinburn, they showed that an iron-cased ship was 
impregnable; yet, after that, we spent three or four years 
experimenting on iron plates, while we had much better have 
been employed in building iron ships. We had, perhaps, found 
out what description of iron would stand hammering the longest, 
but the great fact of the impregnability of iron ships had been 
proved at Kinburn.”* 

The invention of these iron-clad batteries has been attributed 
to the Emperor of the French. Mr. Scott Bussell, however, 
tells us that the introduction of iron plates originated with 
Mr. Stevens, the great steam-boat builder, of New York, who 
was in this country ten years ago, and who then communicated 
to him the results of some experiments that had been made by 
the United States’ Government with regard to these plates. 
And Mr. Beed, in his Lecture, quotes an article in the 
Mechanics’’ Magazine, published in 1824, in which the writer, 
whilst noticing a memoir on this subject by M. de Montgery, 
a Captain in the French navy, attributes the use of plates of 
iron or brass, for covering ships and battering rams, to Archi¬ 
medes, upwards of two thousand years ago. 

There is but little merit due, in any quarter, for the adoption 
of this very obvious and necessary reform in ship-building. 
Foreign governments might, indeed very naturally shrink from an 
innovation, which, by substituting iron for wood in the construc¬ 
tion of vessels of war, would confer such an immense ad¬ 
vantage on England;—for whilst in the purchase of timber, 
and the raw materials of sails and rigging for our navy, we 
were only on a footing of equality with France, and were 
placed at a disadvantage, as compared with Bussia and 
America, where those materials were produced, no sooner does 
iron take the place of wood, and steam of sails, then it gives us 


* Hansard, clxi. 201. 





1861.] 


THE THIIEE PANICS. 


135 


a natural advantage over the whole world. The British 
Government did not, however, seem to realize this view ; for, 
instead of proceeding with the construction of iron-cased 
vessels for resisting combustible shells, for which purpose every¬ 
body admitted they were perfectly successful, successive Boards 
of Admiralty amused themselves for several years with the 
comparatively useless experiment of trying to penetrate an iron 
target a few inches thick with solid shot; and this, whilst the 
engineering and naval authorities were loudly proclaiming that 
it was for protection against combustion and explosion, rather 
than penetration, that the iron armour was required.^ A 
volume might be compiled of the letters in the newspapers, the 
pamphlets, and the speeches, not omitting a series of Lectures 
by Captain Halsted, which have been published, to stimulate the 
tardy movements ot our Board of Admiralty. 

In the meantime, the French Government have, for several 
years, professed not to lay down a vessel of war, intended for 
actual combat (as distinguished from avisos , transports, etc.), 
which is not designed to be clad in iron armour. 

That portion of the naval expenditure of France, set apart for 
dockyard wages and materials for ship-building which was 
formerly laid out upon wooden vessels, will, therefore, hence¬ 
forth be devoted to the construction of iron-eased ships : and it 
being the practice, as we have already seen, for the Minister of 
Marine to take a long prospective range in the publication of 
his plans, when we are told that fifteen or twenty iron-cased 
vessels are to be built, it is merely an announcement of what 
will be the future production of the French dockyards, spread 
over a series of years. Seeing that this is only a substitution of 
one class of ships for another, rendered necessary by the pro¬ 
gress of science, in what respect can it be said to indicate 
hostility to us ? Our government does not pretend to be in 
ignorance of the course France is pursuing, or of the motives 
which decide her policy. We choose to pursue another course. 


* At the late meeting of the Scientific Association, at Manchester, Mr. 
Scott Russell gave utterance to the opinion of nautical men, in a brief and 
pithy sentence : “ The whole practical part,” he said, “ was incorporated in 
one expression of a great sailor, ‘Whatever you do, for God’s sake, keep 
out the shells.’ ” 




136 THE THREE PANICS. [PANIC III. 

Our Admiralty perseveres in building wooden line-of-battle 
ships, until compelled to desist by the House of Commons. 
Then “ My Lords ” throw all their energies into the construc¬ 
tion of wooden vessels of a smaller size, having yet to learn that 
small wooden ships are as combustible as large ones. And 
then we are startled with the cry of alarm for the safety of our 
shores, because the French are said to be building more iron¬ 
clad vessels than ourselves! What can our neighbours do to 
put an end to these periodical scoldings, so trying to their 
national temper, and so lowering to our own dignity and self- 
respect P Nobody will expect the Minister of Marine to 
descend, with his eyes open, to the level of the wasteful mis¬ 
management of our Board of Admiralty. His only hope of 
peace must, therefore, be in an improvement in our naval 
administration; and this is the view of the ablest writer in 
France on the state of the English and French navies, as ex¬ 
pressed in the following extract from a private letter, written in 
consequence of the above incident in the House of Commons :— 

“ The great cause of the irritation, and of the disagreeable 
discussions which have taken place on this subject, I don’t 
hesitate to say, is the ignorance, the incapacity, and the abso¬ 
lutely false organisation of the Board of Admiralty in England. 
Whatever increase .of power the English may derive from it, I 
believe, in the end, it would be better for us to see something 
reasonable established in England, in place of that inactive, 
blind, wasteful, expensive machine, which is called the Ad¬ 
miralty, rather than to serve as the scape-goat, as we always 
do, when they discover that we, not having fallen into all the 
blunders that have been committed at Somerset House, have 
obtained results which displease British pride, and which serve 
as a pretext for railing at our ambition, when, in justice, John 
Bull ought to blame himself for his own short-comings.” 

“ Ricn n’est plus dangereux qu’un imprudent ami, 

Mieux vaudroit un sage ennemi.” 

Before the close of the session, two incidents occurred which 
were calculated to impart renewed life to the panic during the 
recess. On the 19th July, Mr. Kinglake moved a resolution 
respecting a rumoured intention of the Piedmontese Gfovernment 
to cede the Island of Sardinia to France. Owing to the known 
views of the hon. member for Bridgewater, this motion would 


THE THREE PANICS. 


137 


1861.] 

have excited little interest, had it not derived substance and 
validity from the speech delivered on the occasion by Lord 
Jonn Fussell, the Foreign Secretary, who, whilst in possession 
of the disavowals of the governments concerned, contrived to 
leave the public mind in doubt and uncertainty, by weighing 
probabilities, speculating on possible dangers, uttering hypo¬ 
thetical threats, and advocating the maintenance of armaments, 
with a view even to “ offensive” operations, in certain undefined 
contingencies. This speech, which found a subsequent echo 
out of doors, drew from Sir James Graham, afterwards, 
the remark that, “ Whatever alarm has been created re¬ 
sulted from the speech of the noble lord the Foreign Secretary 
when the question of Sardinia was brought forward.” * 

On the 26th July, 1861, Lord Clarence Paget, Secretary of 
the Admiralty, moved for a vote of £250,000, in addition to 
the ordinary estimate, as the first instalment of an outlay 
which it was calculated would ultimately amount to £2,500,000, 
for building iron, and iron-cased vessels, and for supplying them 
with machinery. 

This mode of bringing forward unexpected supplementary 
votes, on the plea that other nations were making sudden 
additions to their navies is admirably contrived for keeping 
alive a sense of uneasiness and panic. The present proceeding 
could only have been rendered necessary by the useless appli¬ 
cation of the estimates previously voted for the construction of 
wooden ships. On the 23rd May, a vote for £949,371 for 
timber had been parried by the Secretary of the Admiralty, in 
spite of the strenuous opposition of Mr. Lindsay, who described 
it as an unprecedented amount, and said that the sum voted the 
previous year had only been £722,758, and that for a long 
period of years, prior to 1859, the average amount did not 
exceed £350,000. This was, perhaps, the most extravagant 
proposition ever made by the Admiralty; for the year before 
the Secretary had declared that “ it was the line-of-battle ships 
which required the large establishment of timber, for there 
never was any difficulty in finding timber for frigates, corvettes, 
and vessels of a smaller class.” j The further construction of 
line-of-battle ships was now arrested; the success of the iron 


* Hansard, clxiv. 1030. 


f Hansard, clvii. 2029. 



138 THE THREE PANICS. [PANIC III. 

ships had been established, and yet more timber than ever was 
wanted ! Had one-half of the amount been applied to iron 
ship-building, there could have been no pretext for this startling 
supplementary estimate. 

In the course of the exciting discussion which followed, Lord 
Palmerston said, “ We know that France has now afloat six 
iron vessels of various sizes, two of them two-deckers, not 
frigates, all large vessels.” And the Secretary of the Admiralty 
gave a list of nine iron-cased ships “afloat,” including La Gloire. 
There is an inexactness in the word afloat , calculated to convey 
an erroneous impression. Iron ships are not launched with 
their armour on, but are cased in iron after they are afloat. 
This is a slow process. The keel of La Gloire , for instance, 
was laid down in June, 1858, she was floated in November, 
1859, and made her first trial trip at sea, in August, 1860. 
She was the only completed sea-going iron-clad vessel at the 
time when this discussion took place. To give the name of 
iron ships to the floating hulls of wooden vessels (sometimes old 
ones), intended, at some future time, to be clad in armour, is 
obviously an inaccuracy of language, calculated to excite 
groundless suspicion and alarm. 

It has already been shown that the French Government had 
abandoned the construction of wooden ships of war, and that in 
future all her vessels would be cased in iron. “We know,” 
said Lord Palmerston, “ that they have laid down lately the 
keels, and made preparations to complete, ten other iron vessels 
of considerable dimensions. The decision as to these vessels 
was taken as far back as December last, but was not carried 
into effect until May, because they were waiting to ascertain 
what were the qualities and the character of La Gloire, and 
other ships afloat.” And, he added, “ there is no illusion about 
them, for we know their names and the ports at which they are 
being built.” * In the course of the debate Lord C. Paget 
gave a list of these vessels. All this proved the very opposite 
of concealment or suddenness of determination on the part of 
the French Government, and that they were pursuing precisely 
the same course with iron as they had done with wooden ships. 
It has been seen that in 1857, consequent on the report of the 


* Hansard, clxiv. 1672, 1673. 




THE THREE PANICS. 


139 


1861.] 


Commission appointed in 1855, the French Government 
published a programme of their future naval constructions, with 
the nomenclature of all the vessels in their intended fleet, 
extending over a period of twelve years. The progress of 
science had rendered it necessary to substitute iron for wooden 
ships ; and again the plans of the Minister of Marine are fixed 
for a series of years, and the whole world is acquainted with his 
plans. The marvel is at the ingenuity with which our states¬ 
men could find anything in these proceedings with which to 
produce an evening’s sensation in the House of Commons ! 

But the most remarkable incident in this debate remains to 
be noticed. Mr. Disraeli, on this, as on a former occasion, 
recommended an arrangement between the English and French 
Governments, for putting some limit to this naval rivalry, 
asking, “What is the use of diplomacy? What is the use of 
governments? What is the use of cordial imderstandings, if 
such things can take place” ? * There is a vacant niche in the 
Temple of Fame, for the ruler or minister who shall be the first 
to grapple with this monster evil of the day. “ Whatsoever 
nation,” says Jeremy Bentham, “should get the start of the 
other, in making the proposal to reduce and fix the amount of 
its armed force would crown itself with everlasting honour.” 

On the 28th August, 1861, on the occasion of a mediaeval 
holiday ceremonial, the Prime Minister stood on the heights of 
Dover, surrounded by a force of regular troops, sailors, and 
volunteers, when reviving the reminiscences of the projected 
invasion, from the opposite coast, more than half a century ago, 
he made an eloquent appeal to the volunteers of England, to 
improve and perpetuate their organisation. There was no one 
in the United Kingdom, or in Europe, who, in perusing his 
speech, doubted the Power to which allusion was made, when he 
said : “We accept with frankness the right hand of friendship 
wherever it is tendered to us. We do not distrust that 
proffered right hand because we see the left hand grasping the 
hilt of the sword. But when that left hand plainly does so 
grasp the hilt of the sword, it would be extreme folly in us to 
throw away our shield of defence.” 

In the last week of November, 1861, news reached England 


* Hansard, ib., 1679. 








140 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[panic HI. 


that Captain Wilks, of the American navy, falling into the error, 
not uncommon to men on land or sea, of constituting himself 
his own lawyer, had carried off four American citizens from the 
deck of a British vessel, in violation of international law. 
During the intervening period, between the arrival of this 
intelligence and the time when an explanation could be received 
from the government at Washington, that party which had for 
years been the promoters of the invasion panics sounded the 
tocsin of alarm at the prospect of a war with America. The 
circumstances of the case were certainly not favourable to the 
alarmists. The people of the United States were plunged in 
civil war, and the President, beleaguered at Washington, had 
demanded half a million of men to defend the Union against 
nearly as large a force of Confederates. The Federal Govern¬ 
ment had, therefore, every possible motive for wishing to avoid a 
rupture with England. To meet this objection, the alarmists 
had recourse to an expedient which had been employed in 
the case of the French invasion panic. A theory was invented, 
which the credulous were expected to accept for a fact. Nay, 
two or three theories were propounded which were in direct 
contradiction to each other. In the case of France, it was 
one day the Emperor, whose blind “ destiny” was to hurl him on 
our shores ; the next day, we were told that his wise and pacific 
policy would be overruled by the army and the populace. 

In the case of America, we were asked, one day, to believe 
that Mr. Seward (who possesses no more power or responsibility, 
under the American Constitution, than one of President Lin¬ 
coln’s clerks) had a long cherished scheme for closing the war 
with the South, and turning it against Canada; the next day, 
we were informed that the government at Washington was 
disposed for peace, but that it would be overruled by the 
“ mob.” * These assumptions furnished the ground for warlike 


* The writer, who has twice visited the United States at an interval of 
twenty-four years, and travelled through nearly the whole of the free States, 
never saw any mob there, except that which had been imported from Europe. 
Inafewof the large cities, where foreign immigrants are verynumerous, they 
constitute an embarrassment in the working of the municipal governments, 
owing to their inaptitude for the proper discharge of the duties of free 
citizens. But this foreign element exercises no sway over the policy of 
the Federal Government at Washington, or even of the separate State 



1861.] 


THE THEEE PANICS. 


141 


prognostications, and for appeals to the combative passions of 
our people throughout the month of December. Meantime, it 
is more important to consider the course pursued by the British 
Government. 

A despatch, courteously worded, dated November 30, 1861, 
was forwarded by the British Cabinet to Washington, ex¬ 
pressing the belief that Captain Wilks had acted without the 
authority of his Government, and requiring the surrender of 
the captured envoys. It was calculated that an answer to this 
despatch could be received in about a month. It arrived, in 
fact, on the 9th January. It is to this interval of six weeks 
that the following statement of facts applies. On the 3rd 
December, three days after the date of the British despatch, the 
French Government forwarded a communication, through 
their minister at Washington, expressing their disapproval of 
the act of Captain Wilks, accompanied with the courteous 
intimation that all the neutral powers were interested in the 
disavowal of the proceeding on the part of the United States’ 
Government. This despatch was formally communicated to 
the British Government on the 6th December. On the 19th 
December, Mr. Adams, the American Minister, waited on our 
Foreign Minister to say that, “ no instructions were given to 
Captain Wilks to authorise him to act in the manner lie had 
done. Neither had the United States’ Government committed 
itself with regard to any decision upon the character of that act. 
The government would wait for any representation the British 
Government might make before coming to any positive de¬ 
cision.” On the 18th December the Austrian, and on the 25th 
the Prussian Government sent despatches to Washington sup¬ 
porting the claim of the British Government. The Russian 
Ambassador, at London, wrote to his colleague at Washington, 
condemning the conduct of Captain Wilks, and this was con¬ 
firmed by the Russian Government. These proceedings of the 
three great powers were immediately made known to the British 
Government.* * 


legislatures. The United States, like England, is governed by landowners, 
with this difference, that they are numbered by thousands in one country, 
and by millions in the other. 

* These extracts and dates are taken from the Parliamentary Paper, 
“North America, No. 3, 1862.” 





142 


THE THREE PANICS. 


[PANIC III. 


This was tantamount to the Arbitrators giving* judgment in 
our favour before they were called on for their award ; and as it 
was known to our Cabinet (but concealed from the public), that 
the President’s Government had not authorised the act of 
Captain Wilks, the chances of war were removed almost 
beyond the bounds of possibility. There was thus every motive 
for waiting in calm confidence the reply from Washington. 
It was but a question of a month or six weeks. Even if the 
Congress of the United States, which alone can declare war, 
had, without debate, thrown down the gauntlet to Europe, a 
campaign, in the depth of winter, on the frontiers of Canada, is 
as impracticable as in the Gulf of Finland. So long as peace 
continued, the Convention between the two countries remained 
in force which prevented any addition being made to the arma¬ 
ments on the Lakes which separate the United States from 
Canada, until after six months’ notice ; and the highest military 
authority * has declared that the fate of a war in that region 
will depend on the superiority upon the Lakes. 

All this, however, did not prevent our Government from 
employing* the interval between the 30th November, and the 
9 th January, in hurrying forward preparations for war, as 
though an immediate rupture was all but inevitable. The 
country was startled by the instant appearance of a proclama¬ 
tion, prohibiting the exportation of the munitions of war. 
Expedition after expedition was despatched across the Atlantic. 
In three weeks, as we were afterwards informed by the Secretary 
of the Admiralty, from 10,000 to 11,000 troops were on their 
way to America, and our naval force on that station was nearly 
doubled. 

These proceedings were trumpeted to the world, amid cries 
of exultation, by the organs of the invasion party, not one of 
whom seemed to occupy himself for a moment with the reflec¬ 
tion that we were exposing our flank to an attack from that 
formidable neighbour against whose menacing attitude, even 
whilst extending the right hand of friendship, we had been so 
eloquently warned from the heights of Dover. This is the 
more remarkable, when we recollect that the Report of the 
Commission on Fortifications had completely laid bare all our 


* Duke of Wellington. 





THE THREE PANICS. 


143 


1861.] 

weak places, and, had drawn from Sir Charles Napier a cry of 
alarm:—“And what,” he exclaimed, “were we to do while 
these fortifications were building F Would the French wait 
three years before they went to war, while we built our fortifi¬ 
cations p * * * * The Commissioners ought to be brought 

to trial for high treason, seeing they pointed out to the 
Emperor of the French all the possible places at which he might 
land an army.” * 

The difficulty in which we found ourselves, when under the 
sudden necessity of providing warm clothing for our troops, 
brought the disposition of the French Emperor to a singular test. 
Such is the severity of the winter in Canada, that sentries are often 
required to be relieved every half hour to avoid being frozen, 
and there is frequently a fall of seven feet of snow during the 
season. For such a rigorous climate, a corresponding equip¬ 
ment of clothing was indispensable. Among other articles of 
necessity were long boots, in which we found ourselves defi¬ 
cient. The following little incident must be given in the words 
of Sir G. C. Lewis, the Secretary for Yv r ar, delivered in the 
House of Commons, on the 17th February, 1862, and, as it is 
taken from the newspaper report of the speech, the expressions 
of feeling, as they were elicited from the House, are also re¬ 
tained :— 

“ There was one article that was not used by any of our 
regiments, and which was not in store in this country,—the 
article of long boots. The French Government having been 
informed of our difficulty, undertook the supply of 1,500 pairs 
of boots, which came over in forty-eight hours from Paris 
(cheers), and at a cost for which they could have scarcely been 
obtained from our contractors. (Hear, hear.) I am happy 
to mention this as a proof of the friendly action of the French 
Government (hear, hear).” 

And thus ends the third panic ! 

It has been demonstrated in the preceding pages, by evidence 
drawn from our own official statements, totally irrespective of 
the French accounts, that as a nation we have borne false 
witness against our neighbours, — that without a shadow of 


* Hansard , clx. 54.5, 6. 






144 


THE THREE TANICS. 


[PANIC ITT. 


proof or justification we have accused them, repeatedly, during a 
long series of years, of meditating an unprovoked attack on our 
shores, in violation of every principle of international law, 
and in contempt of all the obligations of morality and honour. 

This accusation involves an impeachment of the intelli¬ 
gence, as well as the honour of France. In attributing to the 
government of that country the design of entering into a naval 
war with England, and especially in a clandestine or secret 
manner, we have placed them on a par, for intelligence, almost, 
with children. There is not a statesman in France that does 
not know, and admit, that, to provoke a contest with England, 
single-handed, for the supremacy of the seas, would he to em¬ 
bark in a hopeless struggle; and this, not so much owing to our 
superiority in government arsenals, where notorious mis¬ 
management countervails our advantages, as to the vast and 
unrivalled resources we possess in private establishments for the 
construction of ships and steam-machinery. 

In inquiring into the origin of these panics, it would he folly 
to conceal from ourselves that they have been sometimes pro¬ 
moted by those who have not themselves shared in the delusion. 
Personal rancour, professional objects, dynastic aims, the 
interests of party, and other motives, may have played their part. 
But successive governments have rendered themselves wholly 
responsible for the invasion panics, by making them the plea 
for repeated augmentations of our armaments. It is this which 
has impressed the public mind with a sense of danger, and 
which has drawn the youth of the middle class from civil 
pursuits to enrol themselves for military exercises—a movement 
not the less patriotic because it originated in groundless appre¬ 
hensions. 

If the people of this country would offer a practical atone¬ 
ment to France, and at the same time secure for themselves an 
honourable relief from the unnecessary burdens which their 
governments have imposed on them, they should initiate a frank 
proposal for opening negotiations between the two governments 
with the view of agreeing to some plan for limiting their naval 
armaments. This would, undoubtedly, he as acceptable to our 
neighbours as it would be beneficial to ourselves. It would 
tend to bring the attitude of the French Government into 
greater harmony with its new commercial policy, and thus save 


1861 .] 


THE THREE PANICS. 


X 


145 

them from a repetition of those taunts with which they were, 
with some logical force, assailed, a few weeks ago, by M. Pouyer- 
Quertier, the leader of the Protectionists in the Corps 
Legislatif: — 

“If, indeed,” said he, “in exchange for the benefits you have 
conceded to England, you had only established a firmer and 
more faithful alliance! Had you been only able to effect a 
saving in your military and naval expenditure ! But see what 
is passing in England, where they are pushing forward, without 
measure, their armaments. * * * * Can we be said to be 

at peace while our coasts are surrounded with British gun¬ 
boats, and with iron-cased vessels P Are these the fruits of the 
alliance ; these the results of that entente cordiale on which you 
calculated as the price of your concessions ? Let the free-trade 
champions answer me. The Treaty has not only inflicted on us 
commercial losses, but its effects are felt in our budget as a 
financial disaster. The measures of the English Government 
compel you to increase your armaments, and thus deprive us of 
all hope of retrenchment.” 

It must be remembered, that such is the immense superiority 
of our navy at the present time, so greatly does it surpass that 
relative strength which it was formerly accustomed to bear 
in comparison with the navy of France, that it devolves on us, 
as a point of honour, to make the first proposal for an attempt 
to put a limit to this most irrational and costly rivalry of 
armaments. 

Should such a step lead to a successful result, we must not be 
surprised if the parties who have been so long employed in 
promoting jealousy and discord between this country and 
France should seek for congenial occupation in envenoming our 
relations with America, or elsewhere. There is but one way of 
successfully dealing with these alarmists. Speaking in 1850, 
at the close of his career, the most cautious and sagacious 
of our statesmen said, “ I believe, that, in time of peace, we 
must by our retrenchment, consent to incur some risk. I venture 
to say, that if you choose to have all the garrisons of all your 
colonial possessions in a complete state, and to have all your 
fortifications secure against attack, no amount of annual expen¬ 
diture will be sufficient to accomplish your object.” 

If, hereafter, an attempt be made, on no better evidence than 

L 


146 


THE THREE PANICS. 


that which has been subjected to analysis in the preceding 
pages, to induce us to arm and fortify ourselves against some 
other power, it is hoped that, remembering the enormous ex¬ 
pense we have incurred to insure ourselves against imaginary 
dangers from France, we shall meet all such attempts to frighten 
us with the words of Sir Robert Peel, “ We consent to incur 
some risk.”* 


Note.—I t may perhaps be permitted to add a few words of 
explanation, of a personal nature. The writer took a part, both 
in the House and out of doors, in opposition to the first two 
panics, and to the expenditure to which it was attempted to 
make them subservient. At the dissolution, in the spring of 
1857, consequent on the vote of the House against the China 
war, he was not returned to Parliament, but was elected for 
Rochdale during his absence in America, and took his seat on 
his return home, in June, 1859. In the following autumn, he 
went to France, and remained there, and in Algiers, till May, 
1861. The only occasion on which he sjDoke in the House, 
during the interval between the spring of 1857 and the spring 
of 1861, was in opposition to Mr. Horsman’s fortification 
motion, on the 31st July, 1859, when he gave expression, at 
some length, to many of the views contained in this pamphlet, 
and when he analysed the contents of the Parliamentary Paper , 
No. 182, 1859, to which reference has been so frequently 
made. 


* Hansard, cix. 765. 




APPENDIX. 


Since the preceding pages were written, the news of the single 
combat between the two American iron-clad vessels, the Monitor 
and the Merrimac , has reached this country, and has been 
followed by something like an attempt to create an American 
invasion panic. Again the cry has arisen from the old quarters for 
precipitate preparations, and again, as in the case of France, there 
is a disposition to forget all that we have already done. The 
United States’ Government, being actually at war, have, we are 
told, determined to spend fifteen million dollars on armour-cased 
vessels. England, being at peace, had already incurred, or 
committed herself to, a much larger expenditure for the same 
purpose. As nearly the whole of the projected outlay in 
America is for gun-boats, or coast batteries, and not for vessels 
adapted for crossing the Atlantic, there is nothing in their pre¬ 
parations that is menacing to Europe; and we may, therefore, 
wait in safety whilst the Americans are subjecting to the test of 
actual warfare the rival powers of artillery and iron shields. 
Under the intense stimulus now imparted to the mechanical 
genius of that inventive people, every month will probably 
witness the production of some new contrivance for aggression 
or defence; and should the civil war unhappily continue, it may, 
not improbably, lead to discoveries which will supersede existing 
armaments altogether. 

Meantime, the experience which we have already gained from 
this deplorable contest has proved that our existing wooden 
fleet is worse than useless,—that it is absolutely dangerous. 
When, in the pursuits of private industry, a manufacturing 
capitalist discovers that his machinery has been superseded by 
new inventions, and that he can only continue to work it at a 
serious loss, he does not hesitate at once to throw it aside, 
however cautious he may be in making choice of a new invest¬ 
ment to replace it. Precisely the same principle is applicable to 
nations. 

The following Memorandum, which was forwarded to the 
Prime Minister in October last, will be, probably, in some 



148 


APPENDIX. 


\ 


quarters, considered to have acquired increased force from the 
late American news. 


Memorandum. 

“ The present peculiar and exceptional state of the English 
and French navies, the result of scientific progress in maritime 
armaments, offers an opportunity for a reciprocal arrangement 
between the two governments of the highest interest to both 
countries. 

“ During the last century, and down almost to the present 
day, the relative naval strength of the two countries has been 
measured by the number of their line-of-battle ships. But, 
owing to the recent improvements in explosive shells, and other 
combustible missiles, and in the modes of projecting them, these 
large vessels have been pronounced, by competent judges, no 
longer suited for maritime warfare, and warning voices have 
even proclaimed that they will henceforth prove only a snare to 
those who employ them. 

“ This opinion has found utterance in several emphatic 
phrases. 

“ ‘ Wooden ships-of-the-line,’ says one, ‘ will, in a future 
naval war, be nothing but human slaughter-houses.’ ‘They 
will be blown to lucifer matches,’ says another. A third 
authority tells us, that in case of a collision between two such 
vessels, at close quarters, the only words of command for which 
there will be time will be, ‘ Fire, and lower your boats !’ Whilst 
a fourth declares that * any government that should send such a 
vessel into action against an iron-plated ship would deserve to 
be impeached.’ 

“ It hardly required such a weight of evidence to convince 
us, that to crowd nearly a thousand men upon a huge wooden 
target, with thirty or forty tons of gunpowder at their feet, 
and expose them to a bombardment with detonating shells and 
other combustible projectiles, must be a very suicidal pro¬ 
ceeding. 

“ The governments of the great maritime states have shown 
that they share this opinion by abandoning the construction of 
line-of-battle ships. 

“ America, several years since, gave the preference to long 
low vessels, possessing the utmost possib e speed, and being 
capable of carrying the largest guns. 

“ France was the next to cease building ships of the line. 

“ The British Government have come to the same decision, 
and they gave a pledge last session, with the approval of Par¬ 
liament, that they would not complete the vessels of this class 
which were unfinished on the stocks. 


APPENDIX. 


149 


“ It is under these circumstances, that the two countries find 
themselves in possession of about one hundred wooden ships of 
the line with screw propellers. England has between sixty and 
seventy, and France between thirty and forty of these vessels, 
the greater part of them in commission ; and their maintenance 
constitutes one of the principal items in the naval expenditure of 
the two countries. 

“ It will he admitted that, if these vessels did not exist they 
would not now be constructed, and that when worn out they 
will not be renewed. It is equally indisputable, that they have 
been built by the two governments with a view to preserve a 
certain relative force towards each other. 

“ In proof that this rivalry has been confined exclusively 
to England and France, it may be stated, on the authority 
of the official representative of the Admiralty in the House of 
Commons, that Spain has only three, Russia nine, and Italy one, 
of this class of ships. America has only one. 

“ These circumstances suggest, as an obvious course, to the 
two governments, that they should endeavour to come to an 
amicable agreement by which the greater portion of these ships 
might be withdrawn and so disposed of as to be rendered in¬ 
capable of being again employed for warlike purposes. This 
might be effected by an arrangement which should preserve to 
each country precisely the same relative force after the 
reduction as before. For instance, assuming, merely for the 
sake of argument, England to possess sixty-five, and France 
thirty-five, then for every seven withdrawn by France, England 
should withdraw thirteen; and, thus, to whatever extent the 
reduction was carried, provided this proportion were preserved, 
the two countries would still possess the same relative force. The 
first point on which an understanding should be come to is as to 
the number of ships of the line actually possessed by each—a 
very simple question, inasmuch as it is not complicated with the 
comparison of vessels in different stages of construction. Then, 
the other main point is to agree upon a plan for making a fair 
selection, ship for ship, so that the withdrawals on both sides 
may be as nearly as possible of corresponding size or value. 
If the principle of a proportionate reduction be agreed to, far 
fewer difficulties will be found in carrying out the details than 
must have been encountered in arranging the plans of co-opera¬ 
tion in the Crimean and Chinese wars, or in settling the details 
of the Commercial Treaty. 

“ And is this principle of reciprocity, in adjusting the naval 
forces of the two countries, an innovation ? On the contrary, 
it would be easy to cite the declarations of the leading states¬ 
men on both sides of the Channel, during the last twenty 
years, to prove that they have always been in the habit of regu- 


150 


APPENDIX. 


lating the amount of their navies by a reference to each other’s 
armaments. True, this has been invariably done to justify an 
increase of exjienditure. But why should not the same prin¬ 
ciple be also available in the interest of economy, and for the 
benefit of the taxpayers P A nation suffers no greater loss of 
dignity from surrendering its independence of action in regu¬ 
lating its armaments, whether the object be to meet a diminu¬ 
tion or an increase of its neighbours’ forces. 

“ Although this reduction of the obsolete ships of the line 
presents a case of the easiest solution, and should, therefore, in 
the first place, be treated as a separate measure, it could hardly 
fail to pave the way for an amicable arrangement for putting 
some limit to those new armaments, which are springing out of 
the present transition state of the two navies. 

“ The application of iron plates to ship-building, which has 
rendered the reconstruction of the navies necessary, must be 
regarded as the commencement of an indefinite series of changes ; 
and, looking to the great variety of experiments now making, 
both in ships and artillery, and to the new projects which in¬ 
ventors are almost daily forcing upon the attention of the 
governments, it is not improbable that, a few years hence, when 
England and France shall have renewed their naval armaments, 
they will again be rendered obsolete by new scientific dis¬ 
coveries. 

“ In the mean time, neither country adds to its relative 
strength by this waste of national wealth; for, as both govern¬ 
ments aim at only a proportionate increase, it is not contem¬ 
plated that either should derive exclusive advantage from the 
augmentation. An escape from this dilemma is not to be sought 
in the attempt to arrest the march of improvement, or to dis¬ 
courage the efforts of inventive genius ; a remedy for the evil 
can only be found in a more frank understanding between the 
two governments. If they will discard the old and utterly 
futile theory of secrecy,—a theory on which an individual 
manufacturer or merchant no longer founds his hopes of suc¬ 
cessful competition with a foreign rival,—they may be enabled, 
by the timely exchange of explanations and assurances, to 
prevent what ought to be restricted to mere experimental trials 
from growing into formidable preparations for war. If those 
who are responsible for the naval administration of the two 
countries were consulted, it would probably be found that they 
are appalled at the prospect of a rivalry, which, whilst it can 
satisfy neither the reason nor the ambition of either party, offers 
a boundless field of expenditure to both. 

“ 3\ T or should it be forgotten that the financial pressure, caused 
by these rival armaments, is a source of constant irritation to 
the populations of the two countries. The British taxpayers 


APPENDIX. 


151 


believe, on tlie authority of their leading statesmen, that the 
increased burden to which they are subjected is caused by the 
armaments on the other side of the Channel. The people of 
France are also taught to feel similarly aggrieved towards 
England. The feelings of mutual animosity, produced by this 
sacrifice of substantial interests, are not to be allayed by the 
exchange of occasional acts of friendship between the two 
governments. On the contrary, this inconsistent policy, in in¬ 
cessantly arming against each other at home, whilst uniting for 
common objects abroad, if it do not impair public confidence in 
their sincerity, tends at least to destroy all faith in an identity 
of interests between the rulers and the ruled, by showing how 
little advantage the peoples derive from the friendship of their 
governments. 

“ But the greatest evil connected with these rival armaments 
is, that they destroy the strongest motives for peace. When 
two great neighbouring nations find themselves permanently 
subjected to a war expenditure, without the compensation of its 
usual excitements and honours, the danger to be apprehended 
is that, if an accident should occur to inflame their hostile 
passions — and we know how certain these accidents are at in¬ 
tervals to arise—their latent sense of suffering and injury may 
reconcile them to a rupture, as the only eventual escape from an 
otherwise perpetual war taxation in a time of peace. 

“ Circumstances appeal strongly to the two governments at 
the present juncture, in favour of a measure of wise and safe 
economy. In consequence of the deplorable events in America, 
and the partial failure of the harvests of Europe, the commerce 
and manufactures of both countries are exposed to an ordeal of 
great suffering. Were the proposed naval reduction carried 
into effect, it would ameliorate the financial position of the 
governments, and afford the means for alleviating the fiscal 
burdens of the peoples. But the moral effect of such a measure 
would be still more important. It should be remembered that 
although these large vessels have lost their value in the eyes of 
professional men, they preserve their traditional terrors for the 
world at large ; and when they move about, in fleets, on neigh¬ 
bouring coasts, they excite apprehension in the public mind, 
and even check the spirit of commercial enterprise. Were 
such an amicable arrangement as has been suggested accom¬ 
plished, it would be everywhere accepted as a pledge of peace, 
and, by inspiring confidence in the future, would help to re¬ 
animate the hopes of the great centres of trade and industry, 
not only in France and England, but throughout Europe. 

“ Will not the two governments, then, embrace this opportu¬ 
nity of giving effect to a policy, which, whilst involving no 
risk, or sacrifice of honour, or diminution of relative power, will 



152 


APPENDIX. 




tend to promote the present prosperity and future harmony of 
the two countries, and offer an example of wisdom and modera¬ 
tion, worthy of this civilised age, and honourable to the fame 
of the two foremost nations of the earth ?” 


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